Kaveh Haghtalab is an Iranian kamancheh player, drummer and teacher. He grew up listening to his parents performing Persian classical music. He began performing at the age of 14 and was subsequently selected to become a member of “The Center For Preservation and Propagation of Iranian Music”, and won the first title in Fajr International Music Festival. He came to the U.S in 2012 to further study western music and received an advanced performance diploma from collective school music, and has been performing and touring around the U.S with different bands and also as a solo performer since then.
Kaveh is also passionate about teaching. He has been teaching classes including songwriting, global music, mini Mozart, bucket drumming and drum club in collaboration with Wingspan Arts, Dream, Artist Year and Pardis for Children since 2016. He has also created online educational content, in Farsi and English language. Additionally, he has done volunteer teaching including work for underprivileged communities in collaboration with ASTEP.
TAP Work:
“As an artist who’s been invested and passionate about teaching artistry, TAP has been an eye opening experience. It has helped me to deepen my understanding of the queries I have had years before I started to teach: teaching that is focused on social justice and student empowerment. It has also helped me dive deeper into using multiple artforms in my teaching, not only as a way to teach skills, but also as a tool to facilitate social and emotional development.”
Most Memorable TAP Moment:
“One of my most memorable TAP moments was after I co-presented my lesson plan with my teaching partner. Karla Robinson, one of our mentors, pointed out how a question one of the students asked was her way of connecting to the material that was being presented. From that moment I have been more aware of multiple intelligences, and the critical role they play in engaging all the students in a class.”
Find out more about Kaveh here:
- Kaveh performing with his brother at Emrooz Festival
- One of the albums Kaveh co-created and played on
- An interview
