FM
Biography
Modirzadeh, Hafez (aka Modir), saxophone, composer,educator, author; b. Durham, NC, 3 May 1962.
He lived in Durham from 1962-67, and Marin County, California, from 1968-70. He also lived in Montpellier, France, from 1970-72, and in Tehran, Iran, from 1972-73. He lived in San Jose, California, from 1973-83 when finishing a BA in Music from San Jose State University. He moved to Boston to attend New England Conservatory's MM in Third Stream in Fall of 1983, and then lived in Los Angeles from 1984-86 while completing an MA at UCLA in ethnomusicology. Moved to New York City in 1987, attended Wesleyan University's world music program from 1988-90, in Middletown, Connecticut, completing a PhD in 1992. From 1990-98, he taught at San Jose State University's Improvised Music Studies Program, and from 1998-2003, he has been Assistant Professor at San Francisco State's Jazz and World Music Program. His mother is Joan Quilter (b. 1937) and his father is Jamal Modir (b. 1935), the latter, a Persian drummer. He has a brother, Khayyam Modirzadeh (b. 1961), and a sister Leyla Modirzadeh (b. 1967) In the San Francisco Bay Area from 1977-83, he got informal saxophone lessons from Sonny Stitt, James Moody, Joe Henderson, Sonny Simmons, Paul Contos, Norman Williams. Since 1983, he has studied Persian classical music with Mahmoud Zoufonoun, violinist and tar player. At the New England Conservatory, Boston 1983, he took formal saxophone lessons with Joe Allard, and studied Lydian Chromatic Concept with George Russell and Arranging with Jimmy Giuffre. At UCLA, Los Angeles 1984-86, he studied ethnomusicology with Ali Jihad Racy and Nazir Jairazbhoy.
