Reza Manzoori

Reza Manzoori was born in the year of the fire horse in Shiraz, Iran, a city famous for its wine, rose gardens, and poetry. He remembers an early affinity for music and rhythm, but didn't begin playing until rather late in life at 17 when he found an old guitar belonging to his sister in the basement of the house they lived in. The guitar had only the three treble strings. Still, this was more than enough to work with. "The first chord I ever learned was a D chord and I think it was because the guitar only had those three strings".

A Segovia cassette was another inspiration. "Finding a Segovia album in post-revolution Iran was not at all impossible, however to me it was more than a call to the understanding of the guitar. It was a call to the understanding of music itself. I realized that the guitar wasn't the instrument, but that music was, and the guitar was simply a tool for the instrument of Music."

Upon arriving to the United States Reza enrolled in Los Angeles Valley College. Throughout his attendance there he held first chair in both the LAVC Guitar Ensemble and the Monarch Guitar Quartet, an extension of the guitar department headed by Robert G. Mayeur. "Performing (solos) was a great lesson for me. Knowing that I had nothing but the music to play allowed me to forget that I was all alone up there."

His musical experiences are wide and varied. "I wanted to be a great guitar player, but more than that I wanted to be a great musician. And so music in all its forms became appealing to me. I thank my sister for leaving me that old guitar with three strings, and the Creator for blessing my ears. I sometimes wonder what might have happened had it been a didgeridoo."

Reza's album 'ReStrung' is a collection of original songs that he has been "re-creating" for the past ten years. He has been heard to call them practice pieces. "On most of the songs on 'ReStrung' what you hear, minus the percussion, is one guitar track. So all these songs can be performed as solos. However, they would all work nicely as duets, or even trios and quartets."

Reza currently resides in North Hollywood, California.

Source: magnatune.com