Salehyar, Hamidreza

Hamidreza Salehyar is a Doctoral Candidate in Ethnomusicology in the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto. His doctoral research focuses on mourning rituals in Tehran, investigating the ways multiple definitions of agency and selfhood are negotiated and performed in these sonic practices. His doctoral research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Society for Asian Music, and the University of Toronto. In addition to his focus on intersections of sound, interiority, and power in his doctoral research,  Hamidreza is interested in the interplay of musical discourse and local/global dynamics of power. His MA thesis in Ethnomusicology from the University of Alberta (2015) examined how competing articulations of Iranian nationalism, manifested in discourses on Iranian classical music, led to the development of revivalist ideas in pre-1979 musical society. His academic research also benefits from his expertise in Iranian classical music as a tar player; he holds a BMus in Iranian Instrument Performance from the University of Art in Tehran.

Hamidreza currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Society for Ethnomusicology Special Interest Group for the Music of Iran and Central Asia. He has presented his research at major ethnomusicology conferences and has received several prizes. He is a recipient of the Canadian Society for Traditional Music Student Paper Prize (2019), the Society for Ethnomusicology Religion, Music, and Sound Section Student Paper Prize (2018), and the British Forum for Ethnomusicology Student Prize (2017).