Sheida Gharachedaghi


Sheida Gharachedaghi is a Persian-Canadian composer and music educator, based in Montreal.

Life and Career

Born in Tehran in 1941, Sheida Gharachedaghi studied at the Vienna Music Academy in Austria and in 1971 established the Music Department at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in Tehran.
Shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran Gharachedaghi moved to Germany and later settled in Canada.

Facing the Censorship

In 1989 Sheida Gharachedaghi wrote an opera based on the English translation of Ahmad Shamlu's The Fairies. The opera premiered at Metropolitan Convention Centre in Toronto as the Tehran Opera Company dissolved after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran's authorities even did not allow the CD of the opera to be released in the country due to the official ban of solo-women singing after the revolution. The opera released in Europe after more than three decades in 2020, on the 20th anniversary of Shamlu's death.The Fairies is the first Persian opera with an English libretto.

Selected Compositions

Instrumental
Voice and Orchestra
Opera
Music for Children
Books
Film Music