Negar Bouban, Iranian musician, oud player, composer and musicologist, was born in 1973, Tehran. She got her Master’s of Architecture from the faculty of fine arts -University of Tehran, after designing for Tehran’s music conservatory, then got a PhD in Art Studies with an interdisciplinary study of Rhythm in Persian Music and language. She learned Persian Dastgah-Music and playing the Oud with Mansour Nariman, and worked with him on his books for Oud learners. Negar has been active on the music scene, recording and performing Persian music with Ensembles since 1993, the most prominent of which have been: Showqname project -performing compositions attributed to the six-century-old Abdolqader Maraqi, with MohammadReza Darvishi- , tours and recordings with Hossein Alizadeh’s Hamavayan Ensemble; and the international World-Jazz project: Eurasians-Unity.
Negar has always kept her passion for solo music and improvisation burning, doing concerts and recordings of solo Oud, or Oud&Vocals, out of which five solo albums are released so far: Continu (2008), In Turn (2011), Through (2012), A Tale foretold (2016) and On Fire (2018). Alongside her performing life, she has also been working as a musicologist, doing research in music, some of which are published as papers, and presented in conferences, lectures and seminars, while keeping a teaching career at Tehran’s music conservatory and music departments of universities in Tehran and Shiraz since 2000. Presenting Persian Dastgah music on an international scene, also led to teaching workshops and seminars for Oud players and Persian-music lovers from diverse cultural backgrounds in various parts of the world. Based on such experiences, Negar has published two books for oud learners: Oud Method for Persian Music (i-book 2016), and High and Low of Oud: exercises for oud learners and oud players (2018).