Alireza Farhang was born to a family of musicians in Kerman, Iran, in 1976. He took his first music lessons from his father, studied piano with Emmanuel Melikaslanian and Raphaël Minaskanian, and attended the University of Tehran, where he studied composition with Alireza Machayeki. Upon completing his studies, he taught at the University of Tehran and founded his own music school.

In 2002, he decided to pursue his studies with Michel Merlet at the École normale de musique de Paris. With an Albert Roussel fellowship, he received advanced degrees in composition and orchestration. He also studied composition with Ivan Fedele at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg. In addition, he studied with such composers as Toshio Hosokawa, Michael Jarrell, Hanspeter Kyburz, Brice Pauset, Yan Maresz, Tristan Murail, Olga Neuwirth, and Gérard Pesson. He participated in Cursus (the IRCAM’s composition and computer music course) as part of the ECMCT (European Course for Musical Composition and Technologies), in partnership with the Berlin Technische Universität, Universität der Künst, and Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler.

He wrote a musicology thesis at the Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne, under the direction of Marc Battier, on “the codetermination of timbre and melody among Iranian composers.” His dual training in Western and Persian music shows in his compositions, which are a blend of the two worlds. Currently, he is a doctoral student in composition at the Université de Côte d’Azur and the Université d’Anvers, and is pursuing his research on the notation of gesture in transdisciplinary art at the Centre national de création musicale (CIRM), co-directed by François Paris, Jean-François Trubert, and Kurt Vanhoutte.

Farhang is co-founder of the Association of Iranian Composers of Contemporary Music, and his work has been played in many countries by ensembles such as Ensemble Alternance, Kronos Quartet, Court-circuit, the HANATSU Miroir ensemble, Contrechamps, Divertimento Ensemble, the Arditti String Quartet, the Orchestre National de Lorraine, the Nivak ensemble, the Nieuw Ensemble, K/D/M, the Mora Vocis vocal ensemble, E-Mex Ensemble, Ensemble Radial, Neuver Band, the Matka Ensemble, the Vertixe Sonora Ensemble, and the New Generation Quartet.