The reference for traditional and authentic Iranian music
The reference for traditional and authentic Iranian music
Mehdi Khaledi (born August 6, 1919, Tehran – died November 30, 1990) was an Iranian musician, composer, and instrumentalist.
Biography
Mehdi Khaledi was born in August 1919 in the Sangalaj neighborhood of Tehran. His maternal grandfather was a Ney player in the court of Naser al-Din Shah. His interest in music led his father to take him to Abolhasan Saba at the age of 16, who was a friend of his. Saba, who noticed Mehdi’s interest and talent in music, accepted him as his student. He learned violin and Iranian music from Saba in a year and a half, and soon became one of the well-known artists in the field of music. He also benefited from the presence of artists such as Ruhollah Khaleghi, Hossein Yahaghi, Hossein Khaledi, and Habib Esmaeili.
Artistic activity
With the opening of the radio in 1940, Saba introduced him to the radio orchestra as a violin player, and soon he was given two radio programs every week. In 1955, he became the head of music for Iranian radio and formed 6 orchestras for the radio in collaboration with Banan. Various singers and instrumentalists participated in these orchestras, and he was in charge of conducting them. The number of songs that Khaledi composed and broadcast on the radio is between 250 and 300, and he also composed 70 songs for the Golha program.
He created a new and special style of playing the violin and disrupted the old model of performing Iranian music. Instead of the prelude, song, Tasnif, and Reng, Khaledi composed Tasnifs in which the first two verses of the poem were sung with the melody at the beginning of the program, then the singer sang the Tasnif, and then a song piece with a solo instrument was performed, and finally the program ended with the same Tasnif. This innovation aroused the attention and interest of the people and made his songs famous and popular. In composing Chahar Mezrab Shour, he made the famous Chahar Mezrab Khaledi and Chahar Mezrab Salamak exclusive to himself.
In playing the violin, he created a special style of his own, alongside the style of Saba and Hossein Yahaghi, in which attention to bowing was more important than the fingers. He was also the first instrumentalist to play solo violin on Iranian radio after Saba.
He had a great interest in folk and local songs and used them as a source of inspiration for many of his songs, such as رعنا جان and آی بانو.
During the years 1945 to 1964, he made numerous trips to neighboring countries at the invitation of radio networks to perform and identify Iranian music. In 1945, at the invitation of the Indian radio network, he went to Delhi with Badizadeh, Ali Akbar Parvaneh, Kamousi, and Ali Zahedi and boosted the Persian programs of Delhi Radio to the point that a year later, Indian Radio invited him to record samples of Iranian music on record, and he went to India with a number of the best artists of that time and recorded 150 pages of Iranian songs. In 1945, at the invitation of the Afghan government and Kabul Radio, he went to Kabul as the head of a delegation of artists such as Hossein Qawami, Jalil Shahnaz, Majid Najahi, Anoushirvan Rouhani, and Hossein Hamadanian and performed 9 programs that received a lot of attention. Shortly after that, the Soviet government also invited artists from Iranian Radio, and this time Khaledi, as the head of a delegation whose members were Farhang Sharif, Jahangir Malek, and Naser Masoudi, went to Baku and Moscow and performed various programs.
In the 1950s, although cinema in Iran was new and lacked the necessary techniques, he composed music for their films at the invitation of filmmakers, some of which include: Prisoner of Amir, Storm of Life, Sharmsar, and Mother. Khaledi’s acquaintance with Delkash and the formation of the Khaledi, Delkash, and Navab Safa (poet) triangle led to the creation of some of the best Iranian songs together, such as آمد نوبهار, داغ لاله, رفتی و رفتم, and دل غافل. Khaledi composed about 80 songs for Delkash.
During his songwriting career, he collaborated with many poets such as Rahi Moayeri, Bijan Taraghi, Esmail Navab Safa, Moeini Kermanshahi, Hossein Masroor, Abolghasem Halat, Sayeh, Hossein Gol Golab, Mehdi Soheili, Parviz Khatibi, and Nader Naderpour. He has also composed about 80 songs on the poems of earlier poets such as Hafez and Saadi. Some of the singers who have sung his songs include: Delkash, Molouk Zarrabi, Rouh Bakhsh, Banan, and Qawami. Also, most of the non-local Tasnifs sung by Sima Bina are composed by Khaledi.
The collected works of this artist are on خصوصی site as follows:
