Musician and composer. Setar, tar, kamancheh, electronics, film.
Ali Choolaei is an Iranian musician and composer based in Germany who enjoys improvising and exploring new sounds. He plays traditional Persian instruments such as the setar, the tar and the kamancheh, and also works with electronics and sound design.
He also composes music for films and experiments with new approaches to music and sound installations.
Sound installation. Prager Platz, Berlin.
A trunk of an American elm (Ulmus americana), carbonized and sealed with tung oil, becomes an instrument. A piezo sensor inside the wood is connected to a Raspberry Pi. When someone knocks on the trunk, the Pi reads the sensor and the tree answers with sound.
Materials: carbonized American elm, tung oil, piezo sensor, Raspberry Pi.
Live performance. Guest musician, kamancheh.
Guest kamancheh performances with 10or MØSAIC at Studio db and Arkaoda in Berlin.
Live performance. Kamancheh.
A live kamancheh performance in the gallery of painter Shirin Ashkari, at RONDELLprojectspace (B.L.O. Ateliers, Kaskelstr. 55, 10317 Berlin).
Tar and setar. With Valentina Bellanova and Renu.
A performance for tar and setar alongside Valentina Bellanova and Renu at Salon am Moritzplatz, Berlin. The festival is documented on Bandcamp.
Collaborative audiovisual performance. Tar.
An audiovisual performance presented by Higher Resonance in collaboration with Birdmilk Collective, with Ali Choolaei on tar, vocals by Hani Mojtahedy, modular synthesizer by Sacha Ketterlin, immersive surround sound by Wisp and Sweet Audio, and visuals by MXMI.
Tar. Germany.
Collaborative concerts in Weimar and Jena as a tar player, alongside Ali Ghamsari, the acclaimed pianist Lusine Khachatryan, Ali Omidi and Mostafa Omidi.
Iran tour. Tar and setar, in Ali Ghamsari’s ensemble.
A tour through Rasht, Bandar Abbas, Torbat-e Heydarieh and Yazd, performing classical Iranian improvisations and multimodal compositions.
For film scores, sound installations and collaborations, write to alichoolaei@gmail.com.
Also on Instagram.