Biography
An esteemed figure from Iran, this performer also goes by the name Hassan Kassayi. He ranks among the supreme practitioners of the Persian ney, the richly nuanced reed instrument central to Iranian classical traditions. Those traditions rest on the dastgah modal systems and trace connections to the music of ancient Greece. Players must command numerous scale patterns and harmonic combinations while shaping them into coherent improvisations. Frequently addressed simply as master Kassai, he remains the model for younger ney players such as Hossein Omoumi and is widely regarded as the finest exponent in the instrument’s history.
He was raised in a musically engaged household that served as a regular meeting place for artists including vocalist Seyed Hosein Taherzadeh, tar player Akbar Khan Noroozi, vocalist Esmayil Addib Khansari, and the distinguished ney master Aboihassan Sabba. From this environment the boy absorbed a lasting devotion to music, and his father secured his earliest lessons with vocal instructor Taj Isfahani. In 1947 he began ney studies with Mehdi Navai, a disciple of Asdollah; although the teacher passed away three years into what had been envisioned as nearly a decade of instruction, he informed Kassai’s father that the youth had assimilated in three months what had taken him forty years to master.
Further study with Abolhassan Sabba immersed him in a broad classical repertoire that has sustained a performing career of more than half a century. Kassai’s recordings and concert history chart the very expansion of the ney’s capabilities, introducing pieces once considered unfeasible on the instrument. Mahour has released a double CD containing many of these pioneering sessions. He is also featured on the UNESCO-sponsored Philips series Modal Music and Improvisations. His best-known album remains the solo recording issued by the French Playasound label.
He was raised in a musically engaged household that served as a regular meeting place for artists including vocalist Seyed Hosein Taherzadeh, tar player Akbar Khan Noroozi, vocalist Esmayil Addib Khansari, and the distinguished ney master Aboihassan Sabba. From this environment the boy absorbed a lasting devotion to music, and his father secured his earliest lessons with vocal instructor Taj Isfahani. In 1947 he began ney studies with Mehdi Navai, a disciple of Asdollah; although the teacher passed away three years into what had been envisioned as nearly a decade of instruction, he informed Kassai’s father that the youth had assimilated in three months what had taken him forty years to master.
Further study with Abolhassan Sabba immersed him in a broad classical repertoire that has sustained a performing career of more than half a century. Kassai’s recordings and concert history chart the very expansion of the ney’s capabilities, introducing pieces once considered unfeasible on the instrument. Mahour has released a double CD containing many of these pioneering sessions. He is also featured on the UNESCO-sponsored Philips series Modal Music and Improvisations. His best-known album remains the solo recording issued by the French Playasound label.