
Saeid Kordmafi is a lecturer in Musicology of the Middle East at SOAS, University of London as well as a professional performer and composer of classical Iranian music. An ethno-musicologist, Saeid is interested in cross-cultural study of classical traditions in the maqâm world, with specific focus on the history of music theories and their relation to creative practice. His work also casts a net over music analysis and practice-based research. Having completed a BA in Classical Iranian Music and an MA in Art Studies both at University of Tehran, Saeid received his PhD from the Department of Music at SOAS University of London where he was supported by a Felix Full Scholarship.
Kordmafi has worked in the Music Departments at the Centre for the Great Islamic Encyclopaedia and Tehran University of Art as a senior researcher and lecturer, respectively. He was also a member of the editorial board of Mahoor Music Quarterly in Iran as well as an expert advisor of the teaching resources at Open University inn the UK. Saeid is currently an Associate Editor of New Source Readings in the History of Music Theory which is being reviewed to be published by the University of Chicago Press.
Kordmafi was awarded the first BFE Fieldwork Grant (2015), AAWM Rob Schultz Junior Scholar Award (2019) and the British Institute for Persian Studies Research Grant (2019). In 2021, he was recognised by the British Academy as a Global Talent for his potential for academic leadership within a UK higher education institution alongside his research, teaching, and curriculum development roles.
Saeid Kordmafii has so far published some 30 journal and encyclopaedia articles, book chapters, interviews, and reports. At the present, he is working on his first monograph on rhythmic-metric system in the modern music practice of the Mediterranean Eastern Arab region. The book centres on the art-classical tradition which was developed from the mid 19th century (at the latest) in Egypt and Levant, partly rooted in the legacy of the preceding aesthetics, and currently revived by a small group of dedicated musicians in the Arab world.
As an active performer and composer, Saeid has participated in a good number of live performances, recordings, and workshops in the Middle East, Central and South Asia, Europe, and the United States, continuously engaged in carrying out collaborative music-making projects with acclaimed musicians from the Central Asia and the Arab world. He co-founded Rahâ Ensemble in 2007 and won the First Prize of the International Mugam Festival in Baku (2013) with this ensemble. He has released six CDs in Iran (as a composer or/and performer) and one collaborative compositional work (titled the Phoenix of Persia) in the UK. As part of his practice-based research in the Maqam Beyond Nation project, he has been working on the composition, arrangement, performance and recording of a classical Iranian music suite, including some of his own new compositions inspired by the neighbouring traditions, together with some of the pieces in the past and present repertoires of the maqâm realm.
Staff profile: https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/saeid-kordmafi
Personal website: https://www.saeidkordmafi.com/