Saman Samadi’s research moves across contemporary composition, Persian musical thought, philosophy of music, Late Antique Iranian intellectual history, aesthetics, notation, performance practice, and the public life of artistic and intellectual forms. His work brings philosophical argument into contact with compositional method, textual interpretation, cultural memory, and the technical organisation of sound, with particular attention to order, listening, authority, language, complexity, and the conditions under which musical thought becomes legible.
Composing Otherwise: Actualising Difference in Persian Musical Ontology. Journal of the Royal Musical Association, vol. 151, no. 2, forthcoming Autumn 2026, Cambridge University Press.
Peer-reviewed article proposing a new ontology of Persian music that bridges philosophy and composition through the redefinition of difference, order, and becoming.
Journal link: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-royal-musical-association
Becoming Persian Music: A Poststructuralist Approach to Composition. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2023.
Doctoral dissertation introducing Persian modal-rhizomatic and prosodic compositional methods grounded in poststructuralist philosophy, semiotics, and complexity theory.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.102136
A Comparative Study on Two Performances of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Klavierstück X. Perspectives of New Music, vol. 61, no. 2, Summer 2023.
Peer-reviewed article analysing complexity and indeterminacy in Stockhausen’s music within broader aesthetic and musicological frameworks.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/pnm.2023.a950410
Kartīr, Public Authority, and the Language of Mazda-Worship in Third-Century Sasanian Inscriptions. Zenodo, 2026.
Open-access article examining Kartīr’s Middle Persian inscriptions, royal-priestly self-representation, public authority, moral classification, monumentality, and the limits of the surviving evidence.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20474803
Counsel, Judgement, and the Formation of Mind in Middle Persian Wisdom Literature. Zenodo, 2026.
Open-access article studying Middle Persian wisdom literature through counsel, judgement, moral cognition, formation of mind, and the relation between ethical instruction and intellectual authority.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20596347
An Analytical Study on Pierre Boulez’s Le Marteau sans maître. Research Catalogue, 2020.
Digital research output combining analysis and compositional reflection on Boulez’s post-serial techniques, formal construction, temporality, and musical thought.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22501/rc.718708
AI Has Entered Composition at the Weakest Point: Form: Procedure, Decision, and Responsibility after Machine Generation. Substack, 13 May 2026.
A public philosophical essay arguing that AI’s most serious pressure on composition appears at the level of form, where procedure, decision, and responsibility determine whether generated material can become a work.
Link: https://samansamadi.substack.com/ai-composition-form
Nowruz, Order, and the Return of Iran: On Sovereignty, Historical Memory, and the Conditions of Political Reconstitution in Iran. Substack, 22 March 2026.
A public philosophical essay interpreting Nowruz as a civilisational figure of order, renewal, and historical memory, with attention to sovereignty and the conditions through which Iran may be politically reconstituted.
Link: https://samansamadi.substack.com/nowruz-order-and-the-return-of-iran
Asha: The Rebirth of Tragedy. Baru, vol. 5, June 2021.
A philosophical essay in Persian reinterpreting Asha as an aesthetic and ethical principle of renewal in modern composition through Persian cosmology and Nietzschean thought.
Link: https://baru.wiki/saman.samadi/ashaa/
Post-Pars Modal Music. Baru, vol. 4, April 2021.
A theoretical essay in Persian outlining the principles of Post-Pars modality as a hybrid Persian system bridging dastgāh organisation and post-tonal logic.
Link: https://baru.wiki/saman.samadi/musighi-ye-maghaami/
Brian Ferneyhough: Aspects of Notation and Composition. Baru, vol. 6, July 2021.
A critical study in Persian of Ferneyhough’s notational philosophy, contextualised within poststructuralist aesthetics and its relation to Samadi’s Persian calligraphic notation.
Link: https://baru.wiki/saman.samadi/notnevisi-va-aahangsaazi/
A Smooth and Rhizomatic Pitch-Space. Baru, vol. 3, March 2021.
An analytical article in Persian proposing a Deleuzian model of non-hierarchical pitch organisation as a continuum of modal connectivity.
Link: https://baru.wiki/saman.samadi/yek-navakfaza-ye-risomatic/
Glocality of Difference. Baru, vol. 2, February 2021.
A programmatic essay in Persian formulating Post-Parsianism as an aesthetic philosophy of glocality and difference in Persian contemporary composition.
Link: https://baru.wiki/saman.samadi/pasaa-paarsiyat/
From Naqmeh to Temporal Poetics: The Confluence of the Modal-Rhizomatic and Prosodic Compositional Spaces in Thus Spoke Earth. 2023.
An analytical study exploring the conjunction of Persian modal and prosodic systems through a twenty-five-minute composition for violin, piano, and fixed media based on Ahmad Shamlou’s poem.
Link: https://www.samansamadi.net/thus-spoke-earth
Veiled Realms of Existence and Khayyam’s Philosophical Complexity: Music and Poetry Intertwined. 2021.
A research composition for wind quintet and fixed media engaging with Omar Khayyam’s quatrain “Asrār-e azal rā na to dāni-o na man,” exploring epistemic limitation and the poetics of concealment.
Link: https://www.samansamadi.net/oeuvre/through-a-veil
Zarathushtra’s Ašā: Harmonising Existential Transcendence, and Art as a Salvific Force. 2023.
A philosophical essay interpreting ašā as an ontological and ethical principle of truth-order and existential harmony, proposing art as a medium for enacting transcendence through creative, intellectual, and ethical alignment.
Link: https://www.samansamadi.net/oeuvre/aša
The Cosmic Interplay: Vāyu in Ancient Persian Philosophy. 2021.
A philosophical-compositional study accompanying Vāyuvēra for piano trio, exploring the ancient Persian concept of Vāyu and its relation to Zurvan as a meditation on space, time, duality, and becoming.
Link: https://www.samansamadi.net/oeuvre/vayuvera
Shattering: Notating the Ineffable Complexity of Persian Postmodern Poetic Reverie. 2022.
A compositional research commentary examining the translation of Reza Baraheni’s postmodern Persian prosody into a polymetric and polyrhythmic score, with attention to sound, silence, notation, and poetic density.
Link: https://www.samansamadi.net/shattering
Persian Prosodic Composition. Lecture-performance, Royal Academy of Music, London, 19 January 2024.
A presentation of a compositional system translating the prosody of Persian poetry into rhythmic notation and musical form.
Link: https://www.samansamadi.net/oeuvre/the-gāthās-for-piano
Persian Modal-Rhizomatic Composition. Presentation, Middle East and Central Asia Music Forum, City University of London, 31 May 2023.
A discussion of compositional methods integrating Persian modal systems with poststructuralist principles of multiplicity and transformation.
Programme link: https://www.citystgeorges.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/732187/MECAMF-Schedule-and-Abstracts-Final.pdf
Complexity in Musical Works of Stockhausen and Samadi. Research talk, Musical Encounters Series, University of Cambridge, 17 November 2022.
An invited presentation analysing complexity as an aesthetic and philosophical strategy in both Western and Persian contemporary composition.
An Introduction to Post-Pars Modal Music: A New Approach to Microtonality. ICTM Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology, MDW Lucerne–Vienna, 26–29 August 2020.
Conference presentation introducing a microtonal Persian modal framework reconceived through contemporary compositional practice.
Programme link: https://ictmd.org/sites/default/files/2020_preliminary_program_PEK.pdf
Post-Pars Modal Music. Research presentation, Manhattan School of Music, 18 November 2016.
An early presentation of theoretical concepts later expanded into the modal-rhizomatic framework.
Amin Hashemi, “Echoed in Chambers: Creative and Self-Reflective Integration of Iranian Musicians in the UK as Alternative Approaches to Integration Frameworks.” Ethnomusicology Forum, Special Issue, UK, 2025.
Samadi participated in extensive ethnographic interviews concerning his compositional philosophy and creative practice in the UK.
Amin Hashemi, “Their Iran and Our Britain: An Ethnographic Understanding of Musical Creativity, Belonging, and Integration of Musicians with Iranian Background in the UK.” Ethnomusicology Forum, Special Issue, UK, 2024.
Samadi provided in-depth reflections on artistic and philosophical approaches to intercultural composition, belonging, and identity.
Mehrdad Gholami, “An Introduction to Contemporary Iranian Symphonic Music Performance Practice.” Glissando, “Iran: Block Three,” June 2023.
Gholami discusses two of Samadi’s flute works in relation to contemporary Iranian symphonic performance practice. He presents Paj for flute and piano (2011) as an example of transformed Iranian modal material, focusing on Samadi’s reworking of the gūsheh Ghatar from Bayat-e Tork and its implications for ornamentation, accentuation, and phrasing. He later reads Asha for solo flute (2020) through its Zoroastrian concept of ašā, its hybrid treatment of Iranian classical material, and its precise neo-complex notation of ornaments resembling ney performance.
Reihaneh Boroumand Yazdi, “Le mandala, entre mystique persane et modernité: répéter un monde éternel ou créer des mondes possibles?” Déméter, Université de Lille, no. 7, 2022.
Samadi offered artistic and philosophical commentary on his electroacoustic composition Zenith, contributing interpretive material on Persian cosmology, sonic mandalas, and spiritual abstraction.
Reihaneh Boroumand Yazdi, “Le choc de la déviation de la tradition dans la musique électroacoustique iranienne.” Semaine Internationale de la Musique Électroacoustique, LILLIAD Sciences et Technologies, Lille, 24 April 2019.
Samadi’s composition Satori was used as a central case study in this presentation.
Reihaneh Boroumand Yazdi, “Entre passé et avenir: Les deux rôles des instruments acoustiques dans la musique électroacoustique iranienne.” Semaine Internationale de la Musique Électroacoustique, Lille, 20 April 2018.
Samadi contributed to a comparative discussion of acoustic and electroacoustic integration in contemporary Iranian music. His composition Ramkali was cited as a case study illustrating ontological ambiguity and instrumental multiplicity.
Reihaneh Boroumand Yazdi, “L’impact de la tradition dans la création contemporaine: un regard sur la musique électroacoustique iranienne.” Semaine Internationale de la Musique Électroacoustique, LILLIAD, 28 April 2017.
Samadi was interviewed on the role of tradition in new music. His perspectives on Persian musical heritage and sonic innovation informed the author’s framing of tradition as both resource and resistance in compositional thought.