Daryush Pirniakan was born in 1955 in East Azerbaijan and began to study music when he was 12. His first teacher was Mohammad Hasan Ozari. Soon he was honored when the great music master, Ali Akbar Shahnazi accepted him as his pupil and taught him the radif of Mirza Hoseyn-Qoli and his own advanced level course of radif. Meanwhile he entered the Faculty of Fine Arts in Tehran University. There he befriended with Dr. Daryush Safvat and soon he made his way to the famous Center for Preservation and Propagation of Persian Classical Music headed by Safvat himself. At the "Center" he benefited from great music masters like Yusef Forutan, Saeed Hormozi, and Mahmud Karimi. After graduating from university he continued to work and teach at the "Center". By 1979 he began his long-term collaboration with Mohammad Reza Shajarian. Together they held nearly 220 concerts in Iran as well as in the USA, Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherland, Italy and UAE. So far Pirniakan has issued a series of 16 music albums and videos, and has been active as both composer and performer. Of his oeuvre are Yad-e Ayyam, Payam-e Nasim, Rosva-ye Del, Sarv-e Chaman, Aseman-e Eshq, Jan-e Oshshaq, Aram-e Jan (all accompanying Shajarian on tar), Mahur and Segah (dedicated to the memory of Ostad Shahnazi), Shur-e Dasht (accompanying Sadiq Tarif), Sokhan-e Tazeh (accompanying Shahram Nazeri).
He has also published two titles both served as reference in academic circles, and has often appeared in music conferences and given lectures on music in numerous foreign as well as domestic universities, including Taipei University, London University, UCLA, Manchester, Tehran, Amir-Kabir Technical University, and Tabriz University.
His social and executive activities include membership in various music institutes and organizations in Iran, and professorship in Tehran University. He is also the deputy chairman of Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Tehran University. In 2001 he has founded Shahnazi Music Ensemble and with it he has been busy with his professional music activities. Of his recent albums with this ensemble is Aseman with Hamid-Reza Nur-Bakhsh as singer.
He has been granted a first degree art medal by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (2001), and has received his honorary doctorate from the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (2004). Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.