Originally from Iran, Emam migrated to the United States in 1974.
Emam has been trained in North Indian Classical drumming by the grand masters of tabla: Ustad Alla Rakha and Ustad Zakir Hussain. He also studied the Delhi Gharana of Tabla with the late Ustad Inam Ali Khan.
Since 1978, Emam has been traveling to India, almost yearly, spending much time there in pursuit of a greater understanding of the culture and the music. In 1991, he was awarded a scholarship for study of music in India by the American Institute of Indian Studies with funding from the Smithsonian Institute. Subsequently, he spent a year and a half in India, researching as well as producing music. The results were a book called "Delhi Gharana of Tabla (a Compositional Documentation)", as well as music albums which were released by Magnasound.
Since the early 80's, Emam has performed with great artists from around the world, such as (alphabetic order):
Ancient Future (world fusion ensemble)
Sikiru Adepoju (African drummer)
Piotr Baron (sax - Poland)
Latif Bolat (singer/instrumentalist Turkey)
George Brooks (sax - USA)
Michael Carabello (original Santana percussionist),
Artur Dutkiewicz (piano - Poland),
Kai Eckhardt (bass - Germany/USA),
Nina Hagen (pop star - Germany)
Shabda Kahn (vocals - USA),
Habib Khan (sitar - India/USA)
Rupak Kulkarni (bansuri - India)
Zoltan Lantos (violin - Hungary)
Georges Lammam (violin - the Middle East/USA),
Irina Mikhailova (singer - Russian),
Deepak Ram (South African bansuri player)
Seattle Symphony with the original Frank Zappa Band
Mukesh Sharma (sarod player - India)
Manose Singh (bansuri - Nepal/USA)
Suzanne Sterling (singer - USA)
Tam Tam Project (world fusion ensemble - Poland)
Kit Walker (keyboards - USA)
Tytus Wojnowicz (oboe - Poland)
Emam's compositions have been recorded and released on the following "Emam & Friends" albums:
"Jai Ganesha", "Is This Real?", "Sacred Insanity", "Voices of the Goddess", "Indian Dream" (all available from CDBaby)
In 1989, Emam established Eternal Music, a music label dedicated to traditional and sacred world music and world fusion music. All the albums released by Eternal Music have been produced by Emam.
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