Emruz Festival in collaboration with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater:
Please join us for a conversation with the Iranian Conductor and Pianist Sahar Nouri and Emruz Co-Curator Niloufar Nourbakhsh
Language: English Duration: 30 minutes Time: 8:00 PM EST | 1:00 AM GMT | 4:30 AM Tehran
Please join us via Zoom
Iranian conductor and pianist, Sahar Nouri returns to Opera Colorado in 2019-2020 for a fourth season, serving as the company's chorus master, assistant conductor and principal coach. Ms. Nouri is the newly appointed Music Director of Lamont Opera Theater at University of Denver. She is also on the music staff at the San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Ms. Nouri's work with Opera Colorado has included the productions of: Il barbiere di Siviglia, La fanciulla del West, La bohème, Falstaff, La traviata, Le nozze di Figaro and the world premiere of Steal a Pencil for Me (by Gerald Cohen).
Previously, Ms. Nouri has been a member of the music staff at Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Opera North Carolina, Glimmerglass Festival, Utah Opera, Opera in the Heights, Aspen Opera Theatre, Opera Steamboat and Merola Opera.
At the Houston Grand Opera, where she was a member of the prestigious HGO studio 2014-16, Ms. Nouri worked on the world premieres of Prince of Players (by Carlisle Floyd), O Columbia! (by Gregory Spears), and The Magnificent Pretty Boy (by the Grant Wallace Band). She has also done many classic operas at HGO including: Eugene Onegin, Rusalka, Carousel, The Little Prince, Così fan tutte, Madama Butterfly, and Sweeney Todd. Ms. Nouri returned to HGO frequently as a guest coach for the studio program, YAVA (Young Artists Vocal Academy) and as a conductor for HGOco productions.
As a recitalist, Ms. Nouri has performed numerous concerts across the nation including: with Matthew Polenzani at Denver Art Museum Gala, with Mane Galoyan at Musical Bridges Around the World in San Antonio, and with Houston Grand Opera studio artists at the Reinzi Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.
A multi-lingual coach, Ms. Nouri has studied in the Czech Republic, Italy, and Austria and is frequently in demand as a language coach. She holds graduate degrees from of the University of Michigan, where she studied with Martin Katz, and from Arizona State University.
Ms. Nouri is a former violinist who has performed with Tehran Philharmonic Orchestra and has won several prizes, for both violin and piano, in national music festivals and competitions in Iran.
Niloufar Nourbakhsh Described as “stark” by WNPR and “darkly lyrical” by the New York Times, a winner of the Second International Hildegard competition and a 2019 recipient of OPERA America’s Discovery Grant, Niloufar Nourbakhsh’s music has been performed at numerous festivals and venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center. A founder and director of Iranian Female Composers Association, Nourbakhsh is a strong advocate of music education. She is currently a Teaching Artist Associate for composition students of N.Y. Philharmonic’s Young Composers program and teaches piano at Brooklyn Music School, while finishing her doctorate at Stony Brook University.