Negar Bouban is an Iranian musician and Oud player, Born in Tehran, Iran, 1973. At the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, getting an MA degree in Architecture, with the design of Tehran future Conservatory, focusing on special acoustic design for Persian music rehearsal venues, she studied music and musical acoustics at the same time which finally ended in a PhD in Art Studies focusing on Persian Music Theory.
Mastered playing Oud and Persian Radif with the renowned Iranian Oud master Mansur Nariman, Negar has been working with different bands of Persian Classical music for over a hundred live performances and several recordings since 1994, along with frequent recitals at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Fajr and Yas Music Festivals, and radio programs. She’s also worked as an instructor of Oud and Persian music (theory and practice) for 10 years, and cooperated with Mansur Nariman in notating and editing of his two books for Oud players: “42 pieces for Oud” and “The seven Dastgah-s of Iranian Radif for Oud”. Negar is an instructor of Oud at Tehran Conservatory of Music now. With a basic knowledge of acoustics and musical acoustics, Negar got interested in principles of Iranian music of the past and with the well known researcher Dr. Khosro Moulana, she went through the treatises from 10th to 16th century (A.D.) by Farabi, Safi-aldin Ormavi, and Abdolqader Maraqi, as well as other sources of information on music of the past, like miniatures and wall paintings. This led Negar to a research career and academic life, lecturing at Universities of Tehran, Honar, IRIB (Faculty of Radio and Television) and Shiraz Open University.
Following the path, she started her PhD thesis on a comparative study of rhythm in Iranian music and Persian language, with the Iranian Music master Hossein Alizadeh as the music supervisor. Negar Bouban is deeply involved with the art of improvisation, both in traditional way of Dastgah concept and in free improvisation on themes of various origins and modes. Manifestations of this were made in her solo albums: “Payaapey” (continuous)- Tehran 2008, “Be Hengam” (In Turn)-New York 2010 and “Dar Gozar” (Through)-New York 2012.
