Arash Safaian
Arash Safaian’s compositions embody a new understanding of beauty and narrative in classical music. Combining compositional mastery with structural force, physical energy, and expressive intensity, his work is driven by the search for a music in which compositional material is transformed into an immediate emotional and physical experience.
His music has been performed at venues including the Berlin Philharmonie, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, the Tonhalle Zürich, the Philharmonie Luxembourg, L’Auditori de Barcelona, the Savannah Music Festival, and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. His works have been choreographed into full-length ballets at the Staatstheater Mannheim and the Staatstheater Cottbus.
His works have been recorded and performed by orchestras including the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Zürcher Kammerorchester, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Odessa Philharmonic, the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonietta Riga, the Luxembourg Philharmonic, the NDR Radiophilharmonie, the Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Argovia Philharmonic, the Orquesta Nacional de España (Madrid), and the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona.
His operas have been staged in New York (On the Beach) by Robert Wilson and Egill Sæbjörnsson, at the Opera Biennale Munich (At Stake), and at the Neuköllner Oper Berlin (Der Schuss 2.6.1967).
Safaian’s music has been released by Deutsche Grammophon and BMG, with upcoming releases on Warner Classics and Apple Music / Platoon (Birdsongs). His recordings have repeatedly entered the German Classical Charts, the US Billboard Classical Charts, and the Top 10 of the iTunes charts in several countries, reaching an international audience of millions.
His distinctions include the ECHO Klassik, the Günther Bialas Composition Prize, the Reinl Foundation Composition Prize (Vienna), the E.ON Culture Prize Bavaria, and the Bavarian Film Award (Bayerischer Filmpreis) 2019 for his score to the feature film Lara by Jan Ole Gerster.
He has held fellowships at the International Artists’ House Villa Concordia and the Cité internationale des arts in Paris.
Arash Safaian is a member of the German Film Academy. He previously served as a member of the Musicfonds of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) and is a member of the music jury for the Rome Prize at the German Academy Rome – Villa Massimo, the Studienzentrum Venice, and Casa Baldi in Olevano.