Saman Samadi is a Persian-American composer, artistic researcher, experimental performer, and philosopher of music whose work explores the ontological, aesthetic, and epistemological dimensions of contemporary composition. With a PhD from the University of Cambridge, his career spans nearly two decades of interdisciplinary engagement, marked by over 130 works in acoustic, electroacoustic, acousmatic, and multimedia formats; multiple ensemble leadership roles across New York and Cambridge; and a record of publication in both artistic and academic contexts.
His compositional practice involves microtonal modal structures, prosodically derived rhythmic systems, detailed pitch organisation, and a notational approach that reimagines the relationship between sound, time, and form. Drawing on Persian classical music, poetic metrics, and calligraphic aesthetics, Samadi has developed original methods such as Persian prosodic composition and modal-rhizomatic structuring. His work resists both folkloric essentialism and Eurocentric formalism, framing composition as a form of philosophical investigation.
Samadi’s doctoral dissertation, Becoming Persian Music: A Poststructuralist Approach to Composition, brings Persian musical practices into dialogue with poststructuralist philosophy and complexity theory. Engaging with thinkers such as Deleuze, Kristeva, and Paul Cilliers, the research outlines a dynamic system of compositional thought oriented around sonic differentiation, temporal multiplicity, and the materiality of language. It introduces ideas such as modal-rhizomatic pitch organisation, prosodic temporality, and the calligraphic score as a site of interpretive multiplicity—each contributing to a broader reflection on identity, becoming, and cultural hybridity in diasporic artistic practice.
Samadi’s current research builds on these earlier inquiries, exploring sound and composition as pathways for speculative reflection and intercultural understanding. Situated at the intersection of philosophy, music, and aesthetics, his work aims to develop critical frameworks for examining the ethical and conceptual dimensions of contemporary composition—not as fixed categories, but as evolving sites of sonic, cultural, and philosophical transformation.
His compositions have been performed at institutions and festivals worldwide, including the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, NYU, Royal Academy of Music London, Lincoln Center New York, Janáček Academy (Brno), NeoArte Festival (Poland), Hanyang University (Seoul), Queen’s University Belfast, the Academy of Performing Arts (Prague), MuMa (France), the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Cambridg Festival, and the Tehran Electroacoustic Music Festival. His music has been interpreted by internationally acclaimed artists including Jonathan Powell, Jared Redmond, Darragh Morgan, Miranda Cuckson, Linda Wetherill, Junya Makino, Mehrdad Gholami, Kristin Barone-Samadi, Anna Hashimoto, Austin Wulliman, Jaram Kim, Nicholas Swett, Samuel Stoll, and many others.
From 2013 to 2020, Samadi was an actively involved in New York’s experimental music scene, founding and directing the Saman Samadi Quintet, Apām Napāt Trio, and Aži Trio. He served as Assistant Director of The Firehouse Space, an influential venue for experimental music, contemporary classical performance, and multimedia work. His electroacoustic and multimedia projects—including Shekasteh Mouyeh, Nostalgia, U-Turn, and video-art pieces such as Deceptive Assembly and Ghorbat—have explored themes of memory, ritual, displacement, and sonic abstraction.
In 2021, Samadi founded and continues to direct the Cambridge University Experimental Music Ensemble (CueMe). This ensemble functions as a platform for experimental sonic performance and interdisciplinary artistic research. Its debut performance project, Avec Boulez, Mallarmé, et Foucault, staged at Cambridge's West Road Concert Hall and Wolfson College, offered a performative deconstruction of modernist aesthetics and critical theory through musical means, reflecting Samadi’s approach to integrating composition with philosophical critique and collaborative performance practice.
Samadi’s academic writing has appeared in journals such as Perspectives of New Music, with further work forthcoming in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association. His recent and upcoming research includes a study on Stockhausen, as well as investigations into Persian modal and prosodic structures, and poetic-musical hybridity.
He has presented invited lectures and research papers at the Royal Academy of Music, City University of London, the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology conference, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW) and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Manhattan School of Music, as well as multiple conferences hosted by the University of Cambridge. His talks and lecture-recitals address such topics as rhythmic-melodic complexity, cross-modal systems of notation, music and postcolonial critique, and the speculative philosophy of sound.
Samadi currently teaches at Abbey College Cambridge and has served as an Academic Supervisor for the Music in Contemporary Societies course at the University of Cambridge. He has supervised undergraduate students across multiple colleges, guiding projects on composition, sound studies, musical aesthetics, ethnomusicology, and performance analysis. At Conservatoire One Cambridge, an independent conservatoire he co-founded in 2013, he serves as President and Chair of Studies in Composition and Theory, offering research-led instruction in composition, contemporary and early music instrumental practice, and advanced theoretical studies to students from pre-university through postgraduate levels.
His academic background includes a BA in Music Performance and an MA in Composition from the University of Tehran, where he studied under Alireza Mashayekhi—himself a student of Hanns Jelinek, a disciple of Schoenberg and Berg. He also holds certificates in Artistic Research in Music from the Orpheus Institute and KU Leuven, and in Philosophy and Critical Thinking from the University of Queensland. His early studies in Mathematics and Physics at NODET (National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents), a highly selective Iranian institution for students with advanced aptitude in mathematics and science, inform the structural and analytical dimensions of his compositional thinking.
Samadi’s achievements have been recognised with numerous awards and fellowships, including the Artist Diploma from the New York Foundation for the Arts (2015), First Prize at the Counterpoint-Italy International Composition Competition (2012), and selection for the NYCEMF (2012). He was the recipient of the prestigious Dr Grantham Scholarship at the University of Cambridge and has received institutional support from CRASSH, Wolfson College, and the Faculty of Music.
He continues to serve as a reviewer for journals, mentor emerging artists and composers, and contribute to dialogues across composition, philosophy, and performance. His current focus lies in developing intercultural and conceptual approaches to music-making that engage critically with sound and thought.
