What thirty years of teaching classical Persian music to students from different nationalities, cultures, and ages taught me was that introducing a simple method for teaching Radif (the large, complex repertoire of classical Persian music) was a necessity. Furthermore, I have been asked many times by different people about the exact meaning of Iranian musical terminologies, such as Dastgâh, Avâz and Gusheh. The result of my endeavor to solve the pedagogical problem of teaching Radif is a series of eleven lessons that have been created, revised, and fine-tuned over the past 20 years and are designed to be performed and presented.

This series of lessons is called Pish-Radif (Pre-Radif or overture to Radif) and has been briefly presented in this film. Those interested in knowing more about the history and structure of classical Persian music and poetry and their relation to one another and learning the Pish-Radif may refer to the website and the iBook of Pish-Radif.

I must add that this project only became possible through the establishment of the Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture at UC Irvine, funded by Dr. Fariborz Maseeh, and the creation of a ​Professorship position to teach Persian music at this university. This project would not have been possible to bring to a successful conclusion without the financial support from several individuals and cultural organizations such as Roshan and NEA and the efforts and perseverance of my students and friends.

I would like to take this opportunity to heartily thank and express my appreciation to everyone who has helped me with this project.

Hossein Omoumi
Maseeh Professor in Performing Arts, University of California, Irvine
Claire Trevor School of the Arts, Music Department