UCLA - University of California - Los Angeles
10/10/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/10/2024 11:14
Gramian-Emrani Center for Iranian Music endowed fund established with $5 million
Key takeaways
- Through a $5 million pledge by Haleh Emrani, UCLA will establish the Gramian-Emrani Center for Iranian Music in the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.
- The gift from Emrani honors her late husband, Ahmad Gramian, who spearheaded the Iranian Music Program at UCLA.
- The new center builds on the school of music's Iranian Music Program, which was established after a 2018 gift from Farhang Foundation.
Through a $5 million pledge by Haleh Emrani in honor of her late husband, Ahmad Gramian, UCLA will establish the Gramian-Emrani Center for Iranian Music in the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. The new center builds on the school of music's Iranian Music Program, established after a 2018 gift from Farhang Foundation, a nonpolitical, nonreligious, not-for-profit community organization devoted to celebrating and promoting Iranian art and culture, which Gramian chaired.
"I am hoping for this gift to increase focus on the research and study of the music of Iran, while hosting public performances for the benefit of the community at large," Emrani said. "My late husband was passionate about Iranian music, one of the world's oldest traditions that continues to be vibrant and relevant today."
UCLA's commitment to Iranian studies runs deep. UCLA's Pourdavoud Institute for the Study of the Iranian World was established in 2017 as the premier research center for the study of ancient Iran, including its influence and interpretation in the medieval and modern world. The Yarshater Center for the Study of Iranian Literary Traditions, founded in 2023, is a research hub for Iran's diverse literary traditions.
"We are grateful for this gift from Haleh Emrani and especially humbled to honor the memory of Ahmad Gramian," said Eileen Strempel, inaugural dean of the school of music. "His vision was instrumental in promoting Iranian music and culture. Haleh's leadership in establishing this center will provide invaluable support for the next generation of artists and scholars."
The school's Iranian Music Program supports a student-led musical ensemble and community concerts. Additionally, a gift in 2022 from Farhang Foundation, chaired by Emrani at the time, helped fund a postdoctoral fellowship. Composer Shahab Paranj was appointed the first postdoctoral fellow, leading to a significant expansion in programming. This has included scholarly panels as well as concerts featuring both traditional Iranian music and new compositions. Shahab will also provide artistic direction for the new center.
"Having a dedicated center for Iranian music will enable us to build on a great foundation for scholarship, teaching and performance at the school of music," Paranj said. "Iranian music remains a vibrant force in today's world - and we are not only preserving it, but extending it."
The center will coordinate with academic resources across campus, including those housed in the school of music. The school's world-renowned Ethnomusicology Archive will work with the center to bolster the collection and preservation of Iranian music. Graduate students in ethnomusicology, musicology and music composition will have the opportunity to draw on the center for support and collaborate with faculty from across the university.
Maintaining both scholarly research and active public programming is paramount to Emrani. Los Angeles is home to an Iranian community of over 400,000 people, one of the largest concentrations of Iranian immigrants in the country.
"Music creates an important link between past and present. It helps build communities," Emrani said. "The music of Iran has always been diverse and in conversation with other musical traditions. This center will allow that cultural vitality to continue."
Emrani has a keen understanding of the power of cultural transmission. She earned a Ph.D. in history from UCLA in 2011, and her dissertation compared marriage customs in diverse communities of the late Sasanian empire (the last pre-Islamic empire that encompassed modern-day Iran). Trained as an electrical engineer, she is the founder and CEO of SageDom, which provides a community-building software engine that facilitates group collaboration and communications. She is the current board chair of Farhang Foundation.
Emrani's late husband, Ahmad Gramian, was a founding trustee and chairman of Farhang Foundation. A lifelong supporter of the arts, Gramian was well known for his philanthropic work with educational and cultural institutions.
"The Gramian-Emrani Center for Iranian Music is a fitting legacy for two remarkable individuals, both of whom cherish and nourish Iranian culture," Strempel said. "It is our mission at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music to esteem all musical cultures as essential cultural expressions of an evolving global society. This new center will give invaluable support to that mission."
The new center will launch with an inaugural celebration at 6 p.m. on Oct. 20 in Schoenberg Hall at the school of music. The celebration, free to the public, will feature performances by the Iranshahr Orchestra; UCLA Iranian Ensemble; tanbouri and composer Kaykhosrous Pournazeri; and singer Sahar Borougjerdi. Speakers at the event include donor Haleh Emrani; Richard Danielpour, director of the new center and distinguished professor at the school of music; and postdoctoral fellow in Iranian music, Shahab Paranj.