Mohammad Reza Azadehfar

Mohammad Reza Azadehfar (; born 1969 in Isfahan) is an Iranian professor in ethnomusicology and a santūr performer. He started learning the Iranian traditional dulcimer (santūr) under the supervision of Sa’id Na’imimanesh in 1981 and spent some 4 years at the Conservatory of Isfahan. In 1988, he moved to Tehran and attended classes in the santūr given by Faramarz Payvar and Sa’id Sabet.

Azadehfar is also interested in film studies. He studied cinema at the Iranian Youth Cinema Society in 1982 and in 1988 he entered the faculty of Cinema and Theater at Tehran University of Arts to take a BA in cinema. His special interest in cinema was film scoring and editing. Azadehfar won the prize for best film scoring in 1987 for a short film by Asghar Farhadi and a prize for best editing in 1993 at the National Festival of Youth Cinema.

Since 1993, Azadehfar has mainly focused on theoretical issues of Iranian music. He began his studies by attending an MA research program in Tehran working on the topic of “General Training in Iranian Music.” His dissertation was later published as a book in the Persian language and sold more than 5000 copies. Rhythm is especially interesting to Azadehfar. He learned the Iranian percussion instrument the tombak and moved to Sheffield in England to do a PhD program on “Rhythmic Structure in Iranian Music” in 1999. He finished his PhD program in 2003 and was admitted to a post-doctoral program in SOAS, University of London in the same year. He ended his fellowship in SOAS in 2005 and returned to Iran.

In 2005, Azadehfar was appointed to the Music Faculty in Tehran University of Art. In 2010, he was elected as a Dean of the Music Faculty, a post which he held until 2014. During this time he established the Ethnomusicology program in this faculty and spent some years teaching there. He is now Ethnomusicology Professor in this faculty.

In 2014, the Executive Board of ICTM (International Council for Traditional Music) appointed Azadehfar as ICTM Liaison Officer for Iran.

Awards 1987, Winner of prize for best short film music at Isfahan Youth Cinema Festival 1988, Winner of prize for best music composition at Isfahan Music Conservatory 1995, Winner of prize for best edit (montage) of fantasy musical film: “The Familiar Voice” at Iran Youth Cinema Nation-wide Festival. 2025, Award-winning volume The Routledge Companion to Ethics and Research in Ethnomusicology, as a co-author which received the 2025 Ellen Koskoff Edited Volume Prize for exceptional merit in ethnomusicological scholarship.