About

NAVAYE KIMIA was founded by Padideh Ahrarnejad and Ali Massoudi in 2016.

Recent immigrants to Canada, each of the members has over 25 years of experience as professional musicians and educators in their native Iran.

Ms. Ahrarnejad plays and teaches Tar, a plucked-string instrument central to Persian music, and Mr. Massoudi performs on a wide variety of percussion instruments.

PADIDEH AHRARNEJAD, Tar
Padideh Ahrarnejad is an award-winning tar player, arranger, composer, and educator who has brought Persian music across Europe, the Middle East, North America and Asia. A graduate of the Tehran Art Music School and the Art University of Tehran, she studied tar with major figures of Persian music. She was a member of the Iran National Music Orchestra and the Radio and Television Orchestra.

She immigrated to Toronto in 2016, and is currently a member of Kuné, “Canada's Global Orchestra,” a group of elite players from different musical traditions organized by the Royal Conservatory of Music. As a soloist and bandleader, she has performed at the Tirgan festival, the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto City Hall, Ryerson University, the University of Toronto.

ALI MASSOUDI, Percussion
Ali Massoudi plays several percussion instruments. He has worked with many famous musicians, ensembles, and orchestras including the Tehran Symphony Orchestra conducted by Majid Entezami, Manouchehr Sahbai, Shahrdad Rohani, Nader Mortezapour during numerous concerts in Iran, France, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland. Also, he performed with the Iran National Music Orchestra conducted by Farhad Fakhreddini with concerts in Iran.

MAHNAZ RAD, Vocals
She started with learning Iranian traditional music in 2013, in Iran, and then moved to Toronto, Canada in 2015. She had the opportunity to continue learning and singing in Sarv music academy with Mahin Mohajer and also having concerts with Shahin Fayaz, Padideh Ahrarnejad and Ali Masoodi. Due to her interest in experiencing different genre of music, she started singing with Dang Show band since 2019. Their music is a fusion of Persian classical and Jazz, and they had many concerts in Toronto.