Mahsa Vahdat

Mahsa Vahdat (in Persian مهسا وحدت) (born 29 October 1973, Teheran, Iran) is an Iranian artist and singer and strong advocate of Freedom of expression. Her music style is contemporary expression inspired by old traditional and folk and regional music of Iran that she developed for many years and it is the result of work with many musicians from Iran and other countries. She writes most of her songs.

In her music she also developed dialogue between other cultures in a high artistic quality and she got a huge response internationally. The text of her work is contemporary texts of different Iranian poets and classic poetry of Persian poets such as Hafez, Rumi, Hallaj and Tahereh Ghoratolein. She has released materials with her sister Marjan Vahdat (in Persian مرجان وحدت). as in albums Songs from a Persian Garden, I Am Eve and Twinklings of Hope.

After learning to play piano, she studied traditional Persian singing from Pari Meleki and Mehdi Fallah and also studied setar with Ramin Kakavand then with Masoud Shoari. In 1993, she entered Tehran University obtaining a BA in Music from the university's music faculty, working alongside Sharif Lotfi, Ahmad Pejman, Hooshang Zarif, Behnam Vadani, Abdorreza Sajadi, Hushang Kamkar, and Mohammad Reza Darvishi. Her career in Iran was curtailed after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, when Ayatollah Khomeini decreed that women would no longer be allowed to sing solo in public, unless the audience was exclusively made of women. Most of her later materials were recorded outside Iran where she enjoys great fame with the Iranian diaspora and in world music circles. She has been living in Iran despite the restrictions in her career as she thinks it is so important to live in Iran. She encourages many women to learn and keep the Persian vocal arts.

In Iran she teaches Persian traditional singing in her home, she has many students that come with dedication and they are so serious even though they do not see any bright landscape for singing officially. Mahsa encourages them a lot for keeping this tradition and she believes that they have a big role in keeping the treasure of this music for future and next generations ,they can transmit this music to their children and people among them and It keeps the female and also traditional Persian music alive. If she finds any international possibility to present her students or any talent, she encourages and helps them to take part. Following her participation in Lullabies from the Axis of Evil (2004), Mahsa started a long lasting collaboration with the Norwegian record label Kirkelig Kulturverksted (KKV) and producer Erik Hillestad, which led to a world wide release of a series of records.

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