Iranian singer-songwriter Aida Shahghasemi will be joined by friends Liz Draper on bass, Jeremy Ylvisaker on guitar, Max Ylvisaker on guitar, and JT Bates on drums for an evening of original contemporary Persian music.

Aida Shahghasemi is a Minneapolis-based musician with roots in Iran. She studied psychology and anthropology at University of Minnesota with a focus on the cultural aspects of Persian classical music and the restrictions imposed on the voices of Iranian female vocalists. She received her master’s degree in arts politics from New York University, where she also taught a course she developed on arts activism in Iran. She has worked with a number of different art and social advocacy groups in New York and Minnesota as a musician, graphic designer, and developer and has served as an assistant program coordinator at Hamline University’s Making Waves Social Justice Theatre Troupe. She has been a touring member of Iron & Wine and Marketa Irglova’s band while also being a recording artist on two of Glen Hansard’s albums. Her three albums are “Wind Between the Horse’s Ears” (2015), “Cypress of Abarkooh” (2019), and “Chashmandaaze Rooydaad” (2022). She is a McKnight Music Fellow and serves as an adjunct faculty in the MFA program at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Aida is a mental health therapist at Hiraeth Psychotherapy and works primarily with adults and couples dealing with trauma.