Dr. Ashkan Tabatabaie
Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and Digital Media
Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and Digital Media
Education
Ph.D. in Music Composition, University of Utah
MA in Music Composition, Tehran University of Art
BS in Materials Engineering, Azad University
Ashkan Tabatabaie is an interdisciplinary media composer, performer, scholar, and entrepreneur. He has composed instrumental, electroacoustic, and creative multimedia pieces that have been commissioned and/or presented by the Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra, American Creator Ensemble, Persian New Music Ensemble, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, Utah Philharmonia, Fry Street String Quartet, Nova Chamber Ensemble, Next Ensemble, Tribeca Ensemble, VU Symposium, and Salty Cricket, among others.
Ashkan’s scholarly research focuses on the intersection of media cognition, theory, and technology. He actively collaborates with scientists and artists from various fields to discover and establish untapped pathways of writing and performing music evident in Ashkan’s compositions and scholarly writings. He has presented and published co-authored articles in conferences and journals such as the Future Direction of Music Cognition, Basic and Clinical Neuroscience, OpenWest, and MOXsonic, among others.
As an entrepreneur, Ashkan co-founded Digital Content Helix LLC (DCH) in 2020, an audiovisual production company that incorporates new tools and technologies such as augmented reality projection combined with digital art, data mapping, and 3D video and audio recording to shape innovative ways of future story telling within the fine arts. DCH has produced various media content such as music videos, virtual concerts, promotional videos, interviews, and advertisements within the higher education sector. One of DCH’s recent production endeavors, Artivism for Earth, in which Ashkan also collaborated as a videographer, sound engineer, and producer, was featured in the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, as part of the Music 4 Climate Justice Virtual Global Benefit Concert.
Recent Courses
Electronic Music II
Digital Media and Sound
Composition Tutorial
Selected Publications
Fakhrtabatabaie, Ashkan, and Skyler Jennings. “Evaluating Tenney’s critical band using a computational model of the human cochlea.” The Future Direction of Music Cognition, No. 1 (2021): 241.
Fakhr Tabatabaie, Ashkan, Mohammad Reza Azadehfar, Negin Mirian, Maryam Noroozian, Ahmad Yoonessi, Mohammad Reza Saebipour, and Ali Yoonessi. “Neural correlates of boredom in music perception.” Basic and Clinical Neuroscience 5, no. 4 (2014): 259.