Ashkan Behzadi earned his D.M.A. in composition at Columbia University where he studied with Fred Lerdahl, George Lewis, and Georg Friedrich Haas after graduating from McGill University with a bachelor’s in composition and music theory, studying with Chris Paul Harman, Brian Cherney, and Philippe Leroux. He also has a bachelor’s in architecture from Tehran University. He is currently a composition lecturer at Columbia University and in 2019, he joined the music department at the University of Chicago as a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Contemporary Composition.
His music has been commissioned and performed by various international ensembles and has been featured at festivals including TAK Ensemble, Oerknal Ensemble, JACK Quartet, Divertimento Ensemble, Ensemble Alternance, Ensemble UnitedBerlin, Yarn/Wire, Ekmeles, Wet Ink, and Talea Ensemble and has been featured at such festivals and concert series as ACIMC Contemporary Music Festival, Dialoge Festival at Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg, Rondo 2017 in Milan, Manifeste 2014 at IRCAM, and CIRMMT new music series.
He is a Guggenheim Fellow, second place winner of the Graham Sommer Prize, and winner of the Prix de Composition at Fontainebleau.
