BIO

As an innovative composer and multimedia artist, Badie Khaleghian has received recognition on both a national and international scale. Badie showcased his work, "Electric Sky Blue," on stages across four countries—including South Korea, Argentina, Canada, and the United States. Over the years, Badie has secured prestigious honors, such as grants from New Music USA, the Theodore Presser Graduate Music Award, and the City of Houston’s Support for Artists and Creative Individuals Award. A composer fellow at the Ucross Foundation Artist Residency and Avolach Farm Music Institute, Badie’s ethos as an artist-citizen is to broaden the audience for new music. A recent curation titled "Unchained" exemplifies this, exploring audacious stories of women who defied societal norms through an array of multimedia elements.

 

Badie's commitment to artist citizenry, equality, and inclusion is deeply rooted in his personal experience as a refugee and immigrant having a first-hand experience with being persecuted and banned from his human rights. This unique background fuels a dedication to equitable access to education and representation for underprivileged students. Honored to serve as an international academic volunteer, Badie contributed to the development of a Bachelor of Music in Composition program at the Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education, countering educational discrimination in Iran. Additionally, within the Houston area, Badie teaches music composition to economically disadvantaged high school students, aiming to provide equal access to art and music education locally. 

 

With an interdisciplinary approach to art and technology, Badie delves into the neuroscience of music cognition, live brain sonification, and visualization. Collaborations with institutions like the NSF IUCRC BRAIN Center at the University of Houston have provided fresh vistas in understanding the neurobiology of artistic performances. Notably, one such venture used advanced EEG technology to capture inter-brain activity from dancers performing butoh, a postmodern dance form from Japan, presenting the data through a novel brain-computer interface.

 

Currently based in Houston, Texas he is teaching, researching, and making art. Khaleghian's works have been featured at renowned festivals worldwide, including the Atemporanea Festival in Buenos Aires, the Korea Electro-Acoustic Music Society's Annual Conference in Seoul, and the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS). He has composed for a variety of ensembles, including the Crossing Borders, Hub New Music, Talea Ensemble, Transient Canvas, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.