Category: Sima Bina

Sima Bina (born January 4, 1945) is an Iranian musician, painter, researcher, composer and singer of Iranian local songs and melodies. She grew up since childhood with Ahmad Bina, a father who was a master of traditional music and a poet and composer of her early songs. Although she has done a lot of research on Iranian regional music and has performed several songs from them, her knowledge is more focused on the local music of Khorasan.
Biography
Sima Bina was born in Khosf city of South Khorasan province. Her mother’s name was Pourandokht Irannejad and her father’s name was Ahmad Bina. Sima grew up with a father who was a master of traditional music and a poet and composer of her early songs.

She started singing on Iranian radio at the age of 9. She learned the Iranian music row and vocal techniques from masters such as Mohammad Ibrahim Maleki (master of traditional music of South Khorasan), Musa Khan Maroufi and Nasrullah Zarrin Panjeh. Because she was from Birjand, this city was the base of her first researches and searches in terms of local songs and melodies. In fact, most of the songs performed by Sima Bina are local songs of Birjand and its surroundings, which is now known as South Khorasan.

After graduating from the Faculty of Fine Arts of Tehran University in painting in 1970, Sima Bina continued to study Iranian music and Radif with Abdullah Davami and Mohammad Ibrahim Maleki. After 1978, along with teaching music and singing, with the collaboration of Mohammad Ibrahim Maleki, she researched and collected Iranian local songs and rewrote popular and rural songs, especially the local music of her birthplace, Khorasan. By traveling to the most remote areas throughout this region, she has been able to collect a collection of rare and almost forgotten songs and melodies. Since 1993, Sima Bina has been invited to music festivals in various countries to present the treasure of her findings in Iranian local music.

She is the first woman to establish a singing education class after the 1978 revolution. She was also the first woman to perform a concert in Vahdat Hall. From 1993 to the present, she has been invited to international festivals and has introduced Iranian local music to interested people.

The book “Lullabies of Iran” is the result of thirty years of research in Sima Bina’s travels to different cities and villages and meeting with old and young Iranian mothers.

The works collected from this artist are on the private website as follows: