Biography

Hassan Zanjirani Farahani (BA, MA, MA) is an art collector and entrepreneur based in Vienna, an Austrian and Iranian dual citizen, and a composer, pianist and media artist by training. Born in Qom, he attended school, music lessons and the conservatory in Qom and Tehran, commuting between the two cities as a child and teenager. At the conservatory in Tehran he studied piano, trumpet and clarinet; while still young he played as a pianist, clarinettist and trumpeter in various orchestras and gave piano lessons, before moving to Austria to study.

After first studies in Vienna he completed a bachelor’s degree in composition (2015) and two Master of Arts degrees – in composition and in music and media technology (2017) – each with distinction, at the Anton Bruckner Private University Linz. His master’s thesis dealt with the technical fundamentals of stage lighting and visuals. His most important teachers include Andreas Weixler and Carola Bauckholt; he attended master classes with Beat Furrer, Tristan Murail, David Berezan and John Chowning (ORF musikprotokoll).

His works – mostly for piano, ensemble and live electronics, alongside pieces for orchestra, film, theatre, dance and music theatre – have been heard at the Brucknerhaus Linz, the Wiener Konzerthaus, ORF musikprotokoll, Ars Electronica and in festivals in Lower Austria such as Musica Sacra (St. Pölten Cathedral), the Symposion Dürnstein and Imago Dei (Krems). In 2014 he co-founded the Linz ensemble for contemporary music Studio FUGU, and for many years he worked as a live-electronics performer with the clarinettist and composer Renald Deppe. He works with stage and architectural lighting, projection and visualisation, has developed architectural installations in Austria, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Iran, and taught real-time audio and lighting control as a guest lecturer at the Bruckner University (invited lectures).

Today his main work is collecting and trading art. In 2017 he founded Luxonaria GmbH in Vienna (company register FN 474934h), which he owns outright and runs as managing director – an international house for art, antiques and collectibles, hand-knotted Persian rugs (Teppichbazar, BazarPort) and pianos (Musism), built without outside capital into more than 50 shops and marketplaces.

Selected performances and recordings →