Composer
Residency March 12-17, 2012
MIT Visiting Artist and alumnus Jamshied Sharifi brought his unique compositional talent to MIT in the spring of 2012 as composer-in-residence from March 12-17. Sharifi’s residency included the world premiere of Awakening, written for the MIT Wind Ensemble, and a panel with MIT students that recognizes the Arab Spring.
Jamshied Sharifi’s remarkable professional career as a composer and keyboardist, producer and arranger, has included work for motion pictures, his own world music ensemble, collaboration with artists such as Ray Charles, and arrangements for the Inauguration of President Obama. Sharifi is an MIT and Berklee College of Music alumnus.
Listen to the WBUR piece on Jamshied Sharifi which aired on March 6, 2012.
On March 13, Jamshied Sharifi, Philip Khoury, Obaidah Abuhashem, and Emily Jackson participated in an interdisciplinary panel titled Awakening the Arab Spring in Killian Hall at 5:30 p.m. Read more about the event
The March 17 concert program for Awakening: A world premiere by Jamshied Sharifi, included Bernard, Divertissement for Winds; Copland, Variations on a Shaker Melody; Schuman, When Jesus Wept; Bernstein, Profanation from Symphony no. 1; and Sharifi, Awakening, world premiere. Performed by the MIT Wind Ensemble; Frederick Harris, Jr., Music Director; Kenneth Amis, assistant conductor; Jamshied Sharifi, Composer-in-Residence. Read more about the concert
Watch videos of all three movements of Awakening
performed by the MIT Wind Ensemble on March 17:
Movement I
Movement II
Movement III
Jamshied Sharifi is a New York-based composer, producer, and keyboardist. He was born in Topeka, Kansas to an Iranian father and an American mother. Sharifi graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in humanities, and Summa Cum Laude from Berklee College of Music in Boston, with a degree in Jazz Composition and Arranging. At MIT and Berklee, he studied with the legendary Herb Pomeroy, who asked him at graduation to lead the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble. While in Boston, Sharifi studied piano with Charlie Banacos, and West African drumming with Godwin Agbeli and Abubakari Lunna.Sharifi’s previous work ranges from composing scores for major motion pictures, performing and recording with his own world music ensemble to producing and arranging for other artists. He also served as an arranger for President Obama for the Inaugural Concert “We Are One”. He has performed at many prestigious venues throughout the world, including Carnegie Hall and Radio City Music Hall in New York, the Hollywood Bowl and the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the Opera Theater in Sydney, Cité de la Musique in Paris, and Svetlanovsky Hall in Moscow.
Jamshied Sharifi’s Homepage
WBUR’s Here and Now
NPR’s Day to Day
PRI’s The World
The following programs and people were instrumental in helping to organize this residency: Dr. Frederick Harris, Jr., Director of Wind and Jazz Ensembles and MIT’s Department of Music and Theater Arts.Watch a preview video