Biography

Yalda Yazdani is an ethnomusicologist, filmmaker, and curator. She was born in Iran. Currently, she is working as a research fellow and also completing her PhD studies in the field of music at the University of Siegen in Germany. Since 2009, she has undertaken various fieldwork research and has made short documentaries about female vocal songs and music in different regions of Iran. Since 2015, she has organized various intercultural projects, documentaries, music workshops, and concerts across Iran and Europe with the aim of creating collaboration bridges between European and Middle-Eastern musicians and artists. In 2017 and 2018, she founded and curated the festivals 'Female Voice of Iran,' and in 2021, the festival 'Female Voice of Afghanistan,' and in 2023, the festival 'Female Voice of Kurdistan' in collaboration with Contemporary Opera Berlin. She has collaborated with different documentary film productions in Iran, Afghanistan and Kurdistan, focusing mainly on music and its potential to cross cultural borders. Her primary goal is to find ways to improve the situation of Middle-Eastern women musicians, both in their home countries and internationally. In 2020, she was selected to receive a full scholarship from the House of Young Talents Academy to work on her PhD project, focusing on Women's music in post-revolutionary Iran. In 2021, she won the DAAD award (German Academic Exchange Service), the world's largest funding organization for the international exchange of students and researchers. Her latest collaborations have been with the documentary projects 'Saz, The Key of Trust' (Arte, 2018), 'The Female Voice of Iran' (Zeitgenössische Oper Berlin, 2020), and 'Life After Life, The Female Voice of Afghanistan' (CrossGeneration Media 2022). Her latest collaborations have been with the documentary projects 'Saz, The Key of Trust' (Arte, 2018), 'The Female Voice of Iran' (Contemporary Opera Berlin, 2020), and 'Life After Life, The Female Voice of Afghanistan' (CrossGeneration Media 2022), Inner Unity Ensemble, (Duisburg Philharmonie 2023), Qashqai Female Voices, (Rautenstrauch Joest museum 2024).