Farnaz Modarresifar (Iran)

A French-Iranian composer, santur player and poet born in Tehran, Iran, in 1989, Farnaz Modarresifar grew up immersed in Western classical music and traditional Persian music.

She trained at the National Conservatory and the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran, studying both santur improvisation and the traditional repertoire, and was awarded first prize in performance. After settling in Paris, she earned several diplomas and master’s degrees with honours in composition, improvisation and musicology.

A prizewinner in several national and international competitions, she has collaborated with renowned artists such as Bartabas, Lars Vogt, Homayoun Shajarian, Aurélien Dumont, Vincent Huguet and Bertrand Chamayou. She has appeared on France Musique and performed at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris on several occasions, as well as at numerous prestigious festivals.

Selected for the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris’s Academy for Young Women Composers, she has had her works premiered at the Philharmonie de Paris and the Théâtre du Châtelet, as well as at the Slovenian Philharmonic, La Scala Paris, the Opéra de Reims, the Opéra de Rennes, Angers Nantes Opéra, the Gulbenkian Foundation, Bozar in Brussels and many other venues.

A laureate of Georges Aperghis’s composition workshop and recipient of the Alain Louvier Prize and the 24th Grand Prix Lycéen des Compositeurs in 2023, she also received SACEM’s Claude Arrieu Composition Prize (formerly the Symphonic Prize) in 2024, the Fondation Signature’s Prix Fabuleuse in 2026 and SACD’s New Musical Talent Award in 2026.

She has been an artist-in-residence and guest artist with numerous ensembles and festivals, including Ensemble intercontemporain, Ars Nova, Ensemble Recherche, Sillages, Court-Circuit, the Viva Villa! festival and the Festival des Arcs. She was also selected as a resident in musical composition at the Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome, for 2025–2026.

An acclaimed santur performer and improviser, Farnaz has won several performance awards in Iran, including first prize at the Tehran Soloists Festival and the Best Instrumentalist Award at the Âvây-é Mehr Music Festival. Her distinctions also include first prize in performance among Iran’s conservatories.

She is a member of Iran’s National Elites Foundation and has received an honorary diploma from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Her virtuoso santur playing and her compositional work inform one another through an exploration of Persian modes, timbre, playing techniques and instrumental limits. In particular, she is developing an entirely new contemporary language for her instrument. Attuned to the world of sound, she explores resonance, instrumental and vocal percussiveness, time and silence within a musical approach that calls for attentive listening.