Biography

Dr. des. Yalda Yazdani is an ethnomusicologist, filmmaker, and curator born in Iran and currently based in Berlin, whose work sits at the intersection of music, cultural advocacy, and documentary filmmaking. She began her musical journey playing the Tar and has since built an internationally recognized career dedicated to amplifying the voices of Middle Eastern female musicians.

In 2025, she completed her PhD in Musicology at the University of Siegen, Germany, with a dissertation focusing on women's music in post-revolutionary Iran. From April 2026 to February 2027, she continues her scholarly work as a Postdoctoral Researcher (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin) in Transcultural Musicology at the Institut für Musikwissenschaft, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Since 2009, Yazdani has conducted extensive field research and produced short documentaries on female vocal music across various regions of Iran. Since 2015, she has developed intercultural projects — spanning workshops, concerts, and documentary productions — across Iran and Europe, forging creative bridges between European and Middle Eastern artists. She is a board member of the Transmusikale Association in Berlin and serves as host of the forum sessions at the Iranian Female Composers Association.

As a curator and artistic director, she has curated or directed numerous music festivals, events, and projects over the years: Female Voice of Iran (2017 & 2018), Female Art of Crossing Cultures (2019–2022), Female Voice of Afghanistan (2021), Iranian Womxn in Music (2021), Female Voice of Kurdistan (2023), Qashqai Female Voices (2024), Ukrainian Female Voices (2024), Female Voices United (2025), and Female Voices of Resilience — Iranian Women Singing for Freedom, to be presented at the Cologne Philharmonie in September 2026 in collaboration with the Gürzenich Orchestra. She is also the Artistic Director of the Inner Unity Ensemble (Duisburg Philharmonie, 2023–present), an ongoing intercultural project bringing together musicians from the Middle East and Europe in
sustained creative dialogue.

She has worked as sound designer and curator for The Mulberry Tree (Dara Tûyê) — Feminist Voices on War and Gardens, an exhibition project by Flamingo e.V. at Berlin Global, Humboldt Forum, running through August 2027.

These projects have been realized in partnership with Contemporary Opera Berlin, Duisburg Philharmonie, the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, Transmusikale, the Ukrainian Institute in Kyiv and Berlin, and Flamingo e.V. Her documentary film work includes Saz, The Key of Trust (Arte, 2018), on which she collaborated as assistant director; The Female Voice of Iran (Contemporary Opera Berlin, 2020) and Life After Life: The Female Voice of Afghanistan (CrossGeneration Media, 2022),
both co-directed; Female Voice of Kurdistan (CrossGeneration Media, 2023), which she curated; and Qashqai Female Voices — Algorhythms of Cultures (2020), co-directed in collaboration with the Goethe Institute and the Hermap Project.

Yazdani's work has been recognized with distinguished awards. In 2020, she received a full scholarship from the House of Young Talents Academy to support her PhD research, and in 2021 she was honored with the DAAD Award (German Academic Exchange Service) — the world's largest funding organization for the international exchange of students and researchers — in recognition of her commitment to improving the situation of female artists in Iran and Afghanistan.

Her primary mission remains constant: to strengthen the visibility and sustainability of Middle Eastern female musicians, both in their home countries and on the international stage.