“A glorious voice once destined to be hidden in choirs half a world away is soaring free in Queensland, introducing audiences to Iranian folklore and song.”
—Leanne Edmistone, Sunday Mail Brisbane
Shirin Majd is an Iranian born classically trained singer, songwriter and the Artistic Director of the Sweet Sound Ensemble, which aspires to create a fusion of music from diverse cultures around the world.
Throughout her career, Shirin Majd has been an active artistic creator across Australia and internationally, and promotes cultural awareness and understanding with an emphasis on issues for women from the Middle East. As an Artistic Director, she is always looking for ways to collaborate across cultures with exceptional artists from Australia and abroad.
In 2019, Shirin Majd had an international debut of her most recently created show, Kooch: Songs of Migration at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland and at SUNPAC in Brisbane, Australia. The word Kooch in Farsi means, “migration,” and was presented as an artistic performative and collaborative visual experience with composer Mastaneh Nazarian. Audiences were moved by the creative adventure, personal expression, and her story of migration, which was instigated by the fact that Iran’s regime does not allow for performance opportunities for female singers.
“Shirin would touch the air gently, swaying her hips as she sang, a voice I have never heard the like of before.”
—Daniel Donnelly, The Mumble
Shirin Majd was born in Tehran, Iran, and at the age of seventeen she studied classical singing and joined the choir of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra. She performed several concerts as a soloist or accompanied by an orchestra in prestigious venues such as Vahdat Hall in Tehran. She collaborated with numerous renowned masters in Iran such as Rohani, Rahbari and Loris Tjeknavorian.
She went on to study in Armenia with Hasmik Hasagorchian and later attended the summer courses at the prestigious Universitat Mozarteum Salzburg, studying with Professor Alessandra Althoff and Barbara Bonney. In 2010, she went on to study operatic performance and music at the Johann-Joseph Fux Konservatorium in Graz, Austria. In 2011, she performed excerpts from Verdi & Puccini operas at Erfurt Hall and other venues throughout Iran and Austria.
Since moving to Australia, she has continued her education in classical singing with Margaret Schindler and Lisa Gasteen and graduated with a Master of Music Performance and Master of Vocal Pedagogy at the Queensland Conservatorium. She continued her dedication to the art of operatic interpretation by attending Lisa Gasteen National Opera School in 2012.
She is an active performer in Australia as she joined The Queensland Choir and the Brisbane Mahler Chorus. Shirin and the Sweet Sound Ensemble have performed in Brisbane and around Australia. Shirin was awarded best classical singer in BEMAC planet performances in 2012 where she won a scholarship to study music business. She had a successful performance at APSA 2013 in collaboration with world famous artists. In 2015, she was the vocalist and Artistic Director of extended works on the poems of renowned Iranian poet, Forough Farrokhzad, entitled Rebirth,which toured in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2017, she was the singer and Artistic Director of Tales of Scheherazade, a Persian opera which had its debut at the Queensland Conservatorium.