Inspired (for Solo Vibraphone)
Composer: Soheil Shirangi
Year of Creation: 2024
Featured by: The Vibraphone Project Initiative (VPI) — 2024 Call for Scores
Showcased: Online via VPI’s Instagram Platform as part of their amplification series for new vibraphone works
Included in: VPI’s Online Database of Contemporary Vibraphone Works (launching mid–late August 2024)
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Inspired blends elements of Minimalism and Serialism to form a reflective, gradually transforming soundscape. Repeating rhythmic and melodic cells evolve subtly, revealing delicate changes in color, texture, and resonance. The vibraphone’s sustained tones create a meditative atmosphere where motion arises from stillness. Through quiet repetition and shifting emphasis, the piece invites listeners to perceive transformation within simplicity—a moment-to-moment awareness of sound as both structure and emotion.
Composer: Soheil Shirangi
Year of Creation: 2025
Performer: David Bohn
Performance: August 8, 2025 — Ozaukee Congregational Church, Grafton, Wisconsin
Event: Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame featuring David Bohn, presented by Vox Novus and the Organ Historical Society 2025 National Convention
Curator: Robert Voisey
Watch on YouTube | More Information – Vox Novus
Ahimsa—a Sanskrit word meaning “non-violence”—is a meditative exploration of stillness and compassion. Written for solo organ, the piece unfolds through slow harmonic shifts and restrained motion, creating a sense of spiritual clarity. Each chord breathes gently into the next, inviting reflection rather than grandeur. Silence and resonance become equal partners, shaping a space of inner peace. The work seeks not resolution but awareness, echoing the timeless principle that harmony arises through patience, empathy, and the quiet strength of understanding.
Dyslexia (for Microtonal e-Piano)
Composer: Soheil Shirangi • Pianist: Forrest Mood
Event: Instruments Symposium — Organon Research Group, University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria
Date: December 6, 2024
Watch on YouTube
Dyslexia explores the relationship between perception and distortion through the unique tuning of the microtonal e-piano. The work translates the experience of disrupted reading and thinking into sound—where familiar harmonic patterns appear, shift, and dissolve. Notes seem to hesitate or collide, creating a language both fragmented and expressive. Rather than depicting confusion, the piece embraces difference and reinterpretation, suggesting that beauty can emerge from altered understanding—a reimagined form of musical logic and emotional clarity within disorder.
Roja (for Solo Tenor Saxophone)
Composer: Soheil Shirangi
Year of Creation: April 2021
Performer: Drew Joseph Hosler
Event: Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame, November 2021
Watch on YouTube
Roja takes its name from a distant star visible only briefly before dawn—a light so fragile that it fades beneath the brightness of the coming day. Written for solo tenor saxophone, the piece captures that fleeting beauty and sense of disappearance. Through delicate phrasing and sudden bursts of energy, it reflects both clarity and transience. The music unfolds like a memory appearing and vanishing in the same breath, evoking the brief, glowing presence of a star that few ever see.
The Short Etude (for Solo Clavietta)
Composer: Soheil Shirangi
Year of Creation: November 2020 • Published: January 2021
Performer: David Bohn
Listen on SoundCloud
The Short Etude is a brief exploration of tone and breath through the unusual voice of the clavietta—a hybrid between wind and keyboard. The piece plays with fragility and control, transforming a simple study into a poetic gesture. Subtle phrasing and irregular rhythm create a sense of spontaneity, as if the instrument were thinking aloud. Within its compact form, the work captures both the humor and tenderness of this rare instrument’s sound—an intimate miniature of curiosity and expression.
Short Whisper (for Solo Bass Flute)
Composer: Soheil Shirangi
Year of Creation: October 2020
Performer: Lisa Cella
Event: Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame featuring Lisa Cella — The Low Flutes Project
Performance Date: March 27, 2021 • Venue: Concert Hall, University of Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Watch on YouTube
Short Whisper focuses on the narrative and expressive qualities of the bass flute. Using simple techniques and subtle dynamic changes, the piece unfolds like a quiet question that gradually fades away. Each phrase grows softer, as if retreating into silence, reflecting the fleeting nature of thought and sound. In its brevity, the work captures the delicate balance between voice and breath—between what is spoken and what remains unspoken.
Lament for Antoniou (for Solo Bass Flute)
Composer: Soheil Shirangi
Year of Creation: July 2020
Performer: Iwona Glinka
Album: Lament for Theodore — dedicated to Greek composer Theodore Antoniou (1935–2018)
Produced by: Ariadne Music Resources (Naxos) • Supported by The J. F. Costopoulos Foundation
Award: Akademia Music Award – Music Award of Excellence
Listen on Spotify
Lament for Antoniou was written as a personal expression of connection with the great Greek composer Theodore Antoniou, who often wrote laments for friends he lost. In this tribute, the bass flute becomes a voice of remembrance—its deep, human tone evoking both sorrow and gratitude. The music unfolds slowly, shaped by breath and silence, as if carrying the weight of memory. It reflects not only mourning but also continuity, honoring Antoniou’s lasting influence through quiet reflection and sincere emotional depth.
Suspension No.4 (for Solo Melodica)
Composer: Soheil Shirangi
Year of Creation: 2020
Performer: David Bohn
Performance: January 12, 2021 — Twenty Seconds of 2020 Project
Watch on YouTube | Twenty Seconds of 2020 Channel
Suspension No. 4 is part of my ongoing Suspension collection—a series of works exploring memory, silence, and the invisible presence of sound. To me, “suspension” embodies many things: people’s feelings, their memories, nostalgia, hopes, and finally, silence—the kind of silence that is both nothing and everything. Sometimes it can be heard, sometimes not, yet it remains tangible and unforgettable.
In this piece, I tried to recall forgotten memories, to give shape to what cannot be easily described. Every note carries a trace of remembrance; every pause becomes a breath of reflection. Suspension No. 4 lives between sound and silence—a quiet attempt to preserve what time tends to erase.
Miniatur No. 1 (for Solo Cello)
Composer: Soheil Shirangi • Cellist: Esther Morgan-Ellis
Year of Creation: 2019
Performed: October 30, 2021 — University of North Georgia Project: Performing and Interpreting Contemporary Works Written in the Last Fifteen Years
Listen on SoundCloud
Miniatur No. 1 is part of an ongoing exploration into short forms for solo instruments. The idea of expressing something meaningful within a small, concentrated space has always fascinated me. In this work, a simple musical idea grows into a delicate miniature—a moment suspended in time. The cello becomes a storyteller of things that cannot be said in words, capturing emotion through gesture, silence, and resonance. With its modest length and intimate tone, the piece reflects the beauty of the fleeting and the power of simplicity.
The Childhood Dream (for Toy Piano)
Composer: Soheil Shirangi
Year of Creation: December 2016
Performed by: David Bohn — October 2020
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The Childhood Dream reflects moments of memory and imagination, where sound becomes a bridge between innocence and reflection. Written for toy piano, the piece transforms a simple instrument into a vessel of nostalgia—sometimes recalling fragments of childhood, sometimes responding to them with adult awareness. Its fragile tones and quiet gestures suggest the beauty and sadness of remembering. Through its minimal texture and dreamlike pacing, the work invites listeners to revisit their own forgotten worlds with tenderness and curiosity.
Composer: Soheil Shirangi • Pianist: Sahel Abaei
Year of Creation: Winter 2016 • Last Edit & Recording: Fall 2019
Recorded at: Saba Studio, Tehran, Iran
Published: Maelstrom Album — Released January 15, 2021 by ArpaViva Music
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Solo Piano No. 5 is a meditation on the idea of motive—what drives thought, feeling, and creation. The piece begins as a question: What moves us, and why? Through subtle shifts in texture and rhythm, it searches for meaning in both individuality and shared experience. The recurring motives evolve and dissolve, suggesting that our collective sense of purpose is fragile yet essential. In its quiet reflections, the work imagines a world where understanding grows from the simplest human impulses to connect and to dream.
The Remarks (Flute Collection)
Composer: Soheil Shirangi
A set of four short works for the flute family
This collection was written to explore each member of the flute family as an individual voice. For every solo instrument, I aimed to preserve its unique character while shaping a personal narrative around it. Technical aspects—though important—serve mainly to support expression and storytelling, helping me become a better musical narrator.
The Remarks No. 1 (for Solo Flute)
Year of Creation: June 2015 • Last Edit & Recording: December 2020
Performer: Meysam Ghodraty • Recorded at: Pezhman Studio, Tehran, Iran
Watch on YouTube
The first piece introduces the essence of The Remarks: a direct and personal dialogue between performer and instrument. Each tone is shaped like a spoken word, and silence becomes a vital part of the phrasing. Through its simplicity and nuance, the work highlights the flute’s natural intimacy and expressive purity.
The Remarks No. 2 (for Solo Flute)
Year of Creation: July 2015 • Performance: NACUSA Event, Texas Christian University — September 21, 2025
Flutist: Shauna Thompson
Watch Full Concert on YouTube | Watch This Piece
The Remarks No. 2 is written for solo flute and focuses on the instrument’s expressive identity through gesture, breath, and silence. The music unfolds as a dialogue between motion and stillness, presence and absence—metaphorically reflecting the ideas of “open” and “closed.” Technique here is not an end in itself, but a means for emotional and poetic communication.
The Remarks No. 3 (for Solo Bass Flute)
Year of Creation: August 2015 • Performance: Daniela Mars, February 2018
Watch on YouTube
The third work turns inward, embracing the deep resonance of the bass flute. Through sparse textures and extended techniques, it evokes a meditative world where sound and silence coexist. Each phrase feels like a slow breath suspended in air, capturing gravity, solitude, and reflection within its low, human-like tone.
The Remarks No. 4 (for Solo Flute)
Year of Creation: September 2015 • Performer: Iwona Glinka
Published by: Phasma Records — Two Minutes Album (Greece, May 2019)
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The final piece concludes the collection with clarity and restraint. Its melodic gestures are simple yet expressive, like fragments of memory. Here, silence and tone merge into one unified breath. The piece ends not with resolution, but with openness—a quiet farewell that invites reflection and stillness.
The Faulty Sequence No. 2 (for Solo Harp)
Composer: Soheil Shirangi
Year of Creation: May 2015
Performer: Olivia Jageurs — March 2019
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The Faulty Sequence No. 2 explores the idea of process without progression—an unfolding that resists expansion. Through the use of contemporary harp techniques, the piece transforms the instrument into a voice of tension and restraint. Each gesture suggests movement yet holds itself back, creating an atmosphere of fragile suspension. Beyond the harp’s shimmering beauty, the work reflects on limitation and persistence—how even within stillness and imperfection, music continues to breathe, revealing the quiet strength of unresolved motion.
The Synonyms (Solo Piano No. 4)
Composer: Soheil Shirangi • Piano: Sahel Abaei
Year of Creation: 2014 • Recorded at: Saba Studio, 2021 — by Kaveh Abedin
Listen on SoundCloud
The Synonyms explores the idea of thought unity through musical patterns, phrases, and techniques that mirror the structure of language. Each motif acts like a word, each repetition a variation in meaning. The pianist’s own creativity becomes part of the composition, blurring the line between composer and performer. In a narrative yet experimental form, the work invites reflection on the complexity of the modern mind—how repetition, variation, and spontaneous thought coexist within the contemporary human experience.
Navaye Mahzoon (Solo Piano No. 3)
Composer & Pianist: Soheil Shirangi
Year of Creation: 2013 • Rewrite: 2022
Recorded at: Saba Studio, March 1, 2023
Performed by the Composer: April 27, 2025 — NACUSA Event, Center for New Music, San Francisco
Watch on YouTube (2023 Recording) | Watch on YouTube (2025 Performance)
More Info
Navaye Mahzoon (“The Sorrowful Tune”) is a contemporary solo piano work that contemplates the feeling of loss through a Persian lens. Inspired by the Nava mode—one of Iran’s most expressive tonalities—the piece unfolds as a series of brief, emotionally charged moments rather than a continuous narrative. Silence and resonance shape its structure: a low solitary note opens an empty space, fragmented melodies recall fading memories, and irregular pulses echo the heartbeat of grief. Between dissonance and stillness, fleeting calm emerges—a fragile balance between pain and beauty. Drawing on the spirit of Sheikh Kharghani’s words, the piece suggests that every wound, sorrow, and breath of humanity belongs to us all, making compassion itself the true music of remembrance.
Piano Pianissimo No. 1 (Solo Piano No. 2)
Composer: Soheil Shirangi
Year of Creation: Winter 2008 • Rewrite: 2013 • Last Edition & Recording: 2015
Performer: Arman Nassiri — Recorded at Saba Studio, Tehran, Iran
Watch on YouTube (2015) | Watch on YouTube (2018 – Edmund Hartzell)
Piano Pianissimo No. 1 evokes a poetic and deeply introspective space—a mind seeking calm amid inner or outer noise. The piece explores the softest dynamics and delicate nuances of tone, inviting the performer to interpret its emotional atmosphere personally. Through gentle tonal movement and restrained expression, it narrates the fragile stillness of thought, as if peace itself were trying to exist quietly within the turbulence of our modern world.
Composer & Pianist: Soheil Shirangi
Year of Creation: 2007 • Rewrites: 2012, 2015, 2017 • Last Edition: 2021
Recorded at: Saba Studio, Tehran, Iran — by Marjan Masoumi (April 15, 2021)Published: March 29, 2025 — Second Festival of Arts Nowruz by Post Orientalism Music, Berlin, Germany
And used In “Man Na Manam” Documentary film made by Ali Ghanbari, Narration of the life of the contemporary poet Ali Babachahi. More Info
Watch on YouTube | More Info | Post Orientalism
Solo Piano No. 1 is a minimal, introspective work written in a restrained dynamic world—so quiet that even the pianist’s breathing becomes part of the music. Built on simple motifs in D, the piece unfolds slowly, revealing unease and vulnerability beneath its simplicity. Each passing second deepens the sense of solitude and personal reflection. It is a meditation on silence, fragility, and the quiet persistence of feeling in our modern, restless age.