Nilufar Habibian

Nilufar Habibian is an Iranian-British composer of acoustic and electronic music, a qanun player, and an improviser. Alongside concert music, her interdisciplinary collaborations have included scores for contemporary dance and film.

She received her BA in Music from Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2017. During her undergraduate studies, she was awarded the Brian Dennis Memorial Prize in composition. Having received the Guildhall Scholarship Award in 2017-2018, she completed her Master’s in Composition at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

She also pursued another Master’s program in composition at Anton Bruckner University in Austria under the supervision of Carola Bauckholt. In March 2023, she won the first prize in the Lions Composition Competition for trombone and piano.

Her piece “Az Nahayate Tariki” was shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Chamber-Scale Composition Award 2024 in the UK.

Nilufar has studied Western contemporary composition with Nicholas O’Neill, Helen Grime, Mark Bowden, Julian Anderson, Chris Swithinbank, Ann Cleare, and Carola Bauckholt. She has also had lessons with renowned composers such as Chaya Czernowin, Cassandra Miller, Franck Bedrossian, Giorgio Netti, Alberto Posadas, Toshio Hosokawa, Zygmunt Krauze, and Michael Finnissy.

Nilufar’s recent works have been performed by, among others, Plus Minus Ensemble, EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, Hypercube Ensemble, Rarescale Flute Ensemble, Psappha Ensemble, Guastalla String Quartet, Lizard Ensemble, Janus Ensemble, Distractfold Ensemble, and Ensemble Contrechamps.

She has been commissioned by IFCA to write a piece for Hypercube Ensemble, by Tse Tse Middle East to compose a piece for the ‘These Are Our Friends Too’ compilation album, by Rarescale Flute Ensemble, and by Musik21 to write a piece for Guastalla String Quartet and Carla Rees on flute. In 2023, she was commissioned by Three Choirs Festival to write a piece for Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord) and Carolyn Sampson (soprano voice). She also served as a composer-in-residence at Another Sky festival and was co-commissioned by Another Sky and Ensemble Contrechamps.

Nilufar started learning Qanun at age of 11 under the supervision of the renowned Qanun player Ms Maliheh Saeedi at Tehran Music Conservatoire where she received her Diploma in Music. Nilufar was awarded the First Prize for playing “Solo Qanun” at the Student Music Festival in 1995, 1996, and First Prize in International Fajr Music Festival in 1996, 1997 and 1998.

She continued her advanced studies of Persian music repertoires (radif) with grand maestros Mohammad Reza Lotfi and Majid Derakhshani. She was one of the members of the highly acclaimed “Shayda Ensemble” directed by Grand Maestro Mohamad Reza Lotfi, where she performed in numerous concerts and recordings such as “Ey Asheghan”, “Radif Mirza Abdollah” and “Video album of Chavosh Concert 8”. She has also collaborated with The Iranian Orchestra for New Music and Iran’s National Orchestra as a qanun player. She also attended master classes held by Goksel Baktagir, the acclaimed Turkish Qanun player. 

Since moving to the UK in 2010, she has regularly performed and collaborated with various London- and European-based musicians and ensembles performing a variety of musical styles ranging from Persian classical, Middle Eastern and troubadour music to avant-garde and experimental music.

She has been on stage as a soloist and a member of various ensembles at venues and concert halls such as Vahdat Hall, Rudaki Hall, Niavaran Hall, Milad Hall in Iran, and Purcell Room, Cadogan Hall, Cafe OTO, Royal Shakespeare Theatre (Swan Theatre), London Coliseum in the UK, Brucknerhaus in Austria, and Gessnerallee and Schauspielhaus in Switzerland.

Nilufar also holds a bachelor’s degree in French language and a master’s degree in French literature which she received in Iran.