Mehdi Hosseini was born in 1979, in Tehran, where he studied music theory, Persian music and composition with Farhad Fakhreddini. He later completed his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Composition at Saint Petersburg State Conservatory in St. Petersburg, Russia. There he studied composition with Alexander Minatsakanian and afterwards took a postgraduate course with the composer Sergei Slonimsky and conducted research on Eastern music with Professor Tatiana Bershadskaya. Apart from his education in Russia, Mr. Hosseini has also been a student of the composer Nigel Osborne.

Mehdi Hosseini was the focus of attention in Russia as a composer and his works are often performed during various St. Petersburg festivals, e.g. «St. Petersburg Musical Spring», «Contemporary East and West», «St. Petersburg Renaissance», «Trajectories of Petersburg Avantgarde», «Contemporary Past», «Sound Ways». You can hear his music performed by such orchestras as the St. Petersburg State Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra and St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra. A number of his works have been published by Compozitor St. Petersburg.

His music and style has demonstrated his creative capabilities as a composer and his research abilities as a ethnomusicologist and theorist. Hosseini has written symphonic music and chamber orchestra pieces for ensembles and soloists in various compositional genres. At its core, his music reflects his on-going research into the astonishing variety of Persian regional folk music and, in particular, the structure of Magham music.  Mehdi Hosseini’s works show a strong monodic music influence, originally interpreted and incorporated into a personal style.

His music achieves a subtle fusion of contemporary composition and ancient Persian musical traditions which can be heard in his Quartets, which utilize folk material from Northern Khorestan and Bakhtiari; his Symphony of Monody, which is based on Lorestan songs; and his 2008 Concerto for String Quartet and Chamber Orchestra, which finds its source in the Magham of southeastern region of Torbate-jam.

In his music, Mehdi Hosseini strives to explore the intersection of traditional Eastern music and neo-contemporary musical language. He believes that a monodic system can be generally understood as an experimental type of composition that proposes a new view towards folk music—a view that emphasizes the importance of the multiple sound forms used in this system as well as the rich heritage of regional music.

Featured Work: Concerto for String Quartet and Chamber Orchestra (2008)

As Mehdi Hosseini stated, “Concerto for String Quartet” heralded the beginnings of his new-found “Monodies” style. Concerto for String Quartet and Chamber Orchestra performed in Saint-Petersburg, 23 May 2010, by the Saint-Petersburg State Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Brad Cawyer. This work  based on folk music material from the area surrounding the ancient city of  Torbat Jam in Iran, is dedicated to Nigel Osborne, mentor to Hosseini.