Beyond Persia brings Mohsen Namjoo to US for 6 Concerts September 2008.

“ Iran's most famous contemporary musician, Mohsen Namjoo, has signed an exclusive agreement with SF based non profit, to produce, and promote his first US concert series. ”

Mohsen Namjoo/Beyond Persia

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(EntertainWire.Org) – Mohsen Namjoo, Iran’s best known, and most controversial contemporary musician, is scheduled to perform his first 6 US concerts, starting September, 2008. Namjoo has signed an exclusive agent agreement with Beyond Persia, a San Francisco based, non-profit cultural organization, dedicated to fostering cross-cultural appreciation via the arts.  Beyond Persia will be representing Mohsen Namjoo as his sole US agent through 2009, and has sponsored the visa application he needs to perform legally in the United States.  

“We consider it an honor to be able to actively participate in presenting good artists to both the Iranian community abroad as well as to Americans who are open to an alternative view of  Iranians, than the one readily offered in the news” said Amir Salamat, the President and co-founder of Beyond Persia—himself an Iranian American artist. “But to present Mohsen Namjoo is a rare pleasure as his musical genius will still be talked about a hundred years from now.  We’re helping to make history by bringing him to the United States at a time when our collective image has taken a beating”.

Famous for fusing traditional Persian music with Jazz, rock and blues, Namjoo has garnered large numbers of fans and critics alike in Iran, with equal enthusiasm and has been featured in the international press as “Avante Garde” and “experimental” for using his voice as an instrument in unconventional ways, and for his ability to weave fluently in and out of traditional eastern and into modern western music with relative ease.   Mohsen Namjoo has performed internationally once in Paris and once in Rotterdam in 2007, so the 2008 US tour is a major coup for both the artist and his fans.

All 6 Concerts will be solo performances booked at high-end venues, starting in San Francisco on September 6th, at the Palace of Fine Arts, followed by New York, at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, Washington DC, at the Ronald Reagan Building, the Museum of Contemporary Arts, San Diego in La Jolla, and the historic El Rey Theater in Los Angeles.   For a complete list of dates and venue which are still in formation, visit www.beyondpersia.org.

In addition to the 6 concerts, Mohsen Namjoo has been invited to lecture on his music at Stanford University’s Iranian Studies Program on October 3rd at Cubberley Auditorium.
This event is the only exception allowed for in this otherwise exclusive presentation by Beyond Persia’s Board of Directors.  A second series of concerts has already been arranged for 2009, and the details of the next 6 concerts are to be determined after Mr. Namjoo arrives in the US, in late August.