Dariush Derakhshani is an experimental electroacoustic composer and audio programmer based in Santa Barbara. His research focuses on what he calls ecopoietic synthesis, where the resulting digital sound waves are modelled after natural phenomena; though the sonic reality of this process is capable of producing results that cannot be replicated in the natural sound world. This method of synthesis opens the door to a peculiar corner of the infinitely vast sound universe where the local sound objects mostly behave and feel the way we expect them to… but not impeccably. Exploring a fraction of these possibilities using stochastic methods has been the stimulating force behind Derakhshani's latest acousmatic works.
Most recently, he was commissioned to compose Debris, a fixed media work by Roberto Alonso Trillo which was be premiered in Hong Kong and performed in A Coruña, Barcelona, and Lisbon. His compositions Debris and Pārsa were winners of 2022 Dorothy and Sherril C. Corwin Award for Excellence in Composition and 2021 International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music - CIME-ICEM, respectively.

He also attended IRCAM Manifeste, where he had the opportunity to work closely with members of Ensemble Intercontemporain, and Altitude Festival where he composed the piece Error Code -39 for “l’ensemble Multilatérale”. He was chosen to compose a chamber piece for Divertimento Ensemble conducted by Sandro Gorli. Other notable festival appearances include Impuls Academy, the Madeira Residency where he composed Whispers for Keiko Murakami, Festival DME where he premiered his acousmatic work Time, Barcelona Mixtur Festival where he worked with members of Phace Ensemble, and Kyiv Contemporary Music Days where he composed Curiosity for clarinet and electronics.

He has studied and participated in masterclasses with the composers Patricia Alessandrini, Raphaël Cendo, Francesco Filidei, Beat Furrer, Philippe Hurel, Helmut Lachenmann, Mauro Lanza, Fabien Lévy, Tristan Murail, Gilbert Nouno, João Pedro Olivera, Åke Parmerud, Jaime Reis, Yann Robin and Alexander Schubert.

Derakhshani is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Music Composition at California University of Music, Santa Barbara under the supervision of João Pedro Olivera and Curtis Roads.

dariush (at) derakhshani.me

Download Short Bio (PDF) - Download Short Bio (Word) - Download Headshot (TIF)