Dr. Mashallah Ajoudani

Dr. Mashallah Ajoudani was born in 1950 in Amol in northern Iran. He spent his elementary and high school years in Amol, and in 1972 was admitted by the Faculty of Literature at the University of Tehran to study Persian language and literature. He later also received a doctorate in Persian language and literature from the University of Tehran. His doctoral dissertation focused on the study of the styles of constitutional poetry.

For seven years, Ajoudani was an official member of the faculty at the University of Isfahan, Iran and an instructor at the Department of Persian Language and Literature in the Faculty of Literature and Humanities, where he taught texts of ancient Iranian literature and contemporary literature.

In January 1987, Ajoudani moved to London with his family and continued his cultural and literary work. Dr. Ajoudani’s first book, titled “The Iranian Constitution and the Background of the Theory of Velayat-e Faqih, a Critique and Study of the History of the Constitution and the Historiography of that Period,” was published in London in 1997. The book, which has also been titled “Iranian Constitution,” has thus far been reprinted twelve times.

His second book titled, “Either Death or Renewal,” is a book on constitutional poetry and literature, published in 2002 in London. This book has been reprinted five times.

His third book, “Guidance, The Blind Owl, and Nationalism, on Literary Criticism, The Blind Owl Critique, and Its Structure” was published in 2006 in London. This book has also been published three times.

Dr. Ajoudani is currently the Director of the Library of Iranian Studies and a member of its Board of Trustees in London. The library was founded by him in 1991.

d songs, most of which were among the most popular songs of the time. He also composed soundtracks for tens of films. His reputation as soundtrack composer greatly helped the popularity and sales of films.

Monfaredzadeh left Iran for the United States in one year after the Islamic Revolution, to protest the persecution of dissidents. He has not returned to Iran since then and during this time he has composed about 20 songs and soundtracks.

Brief Biography, Fred A. Harrington, Jr

Dr. Fred A. Harrington was born in Colorado, and at the age of 10 the family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where his father worked as a construction engineer. He attended the University of New Mexico in pre-forestry and then transferred to Colorado State University, where he obtained a degree in Wildlife Biology in 1959. After graduation, he was employed as a big-game biologist by New Mexico Game and Fish Department. Three years later, faced with the military draft, he chose to enter the Aviation Cadets program, where after a year of training he became a 2^nd Lieutenant with a flight navigator rating.

He served 5 years in Military Airlift Command during the Vietnam War era, attaining the rank of Captain and then returned to Graduate School at Colorado State University where he studied Bighorn Sheep in Rocky Mountain National Park for my PhD.

In 1970 Harrington was interviewed by Eskandar Firouz )head of the Hunting and Fishing Organization), for a position in Iran, where he served for 7 years in a wide range of natural resource activities. Among his chief accomplishments was completion of the National Report on the Environment for the Stockholm Conference and subsequently was asked to prepare a plan for creation of the Iran Department of the Environment. The plan was passed by Parliament in 1972, and he served as head of the Division of the Natural Environment, where he continued to conduct and supervise field activities, prepared a wide range of scientific and popular publications and worked with several film groups to document the activities of the Department.

Harrington returned to the United States in 1977 and worked as Western Regional Land Steward for the Nature Conservancy before setting up his own environmental consulting firm. He was hired by Ebasco Engineering to perform the Ecological Monitoring Program for the cleanup of Rocky Mountain Arsenal, allegedly the most polluted spot on the planet. Harrington was then engaged by the Department of Energy to perform the feasibility studies for cleanup of Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility near Denver. He subsequently served as head of the Ecology Division, monitoring the cleanup. Both Rocky Mountain Arsenal and Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility ultimately became National Wildlife Refuges.

Harrington and his wife then returned to our roots in the Pawnee Grasslands of northeast Colorado where thay restored an historic hotel and ran a “birder’s bed and breakfast” which thay named the Plover Inn.

Esfandiar Monfaredzadeh, musician and composer

Esfandiar Monfardzadeh was born in 1941 in Tehran, Iran. From an early age, he learned playing various instruments, and from the age of thirteen, he played the tambourine, accordion, and dulcimer in school art programs. At fifteen he played with a group in the Children’s morning program of Iran’s national radio. From the age of sixteen, he worked and played instruments in cafes and theaters in Tehran.

Monfardzadeh was nineteen years old when he started composing songs and composed a song for the Radio Iran Youth Orchestra. He went on to compose more than ten songs in the next three years. Along with writing songs, one of Monfardzadeh’s major interests was writing soundtracks, and he regularly checked with Iran’s film studios at the time to pursue any possible opportunity.

In 1967, he started a degree in music at the Faculty of Fine Arts in the field of music, but after about two and a half years, he dropped out of the university program.

It was at the opening ceremony of the same college that he arranged and conducted the music of the “Great Student Orchestra of the University of Tehran” (sixty musicians and fifty choirs) for the opera “Conquest of Babylon” (composed by Reza Narvand). This opera was held in the presence of the King and Queen of Iran.

It was from 1969 onwards that he was commissioned by various studios to write and record soundtracks, arrange lip-syncing songs, compose melodies and perform various songs. It was at that time that composing and arranging the full soundtrack for a movie called “Ghaisar” made him famous.

In 1971, he received the award for best soundtrack for it, and a year later, he received the award for best soundtrack again for composing and arranging the soundtrack of another film called “Reza Motori”. In that film, for the first time, he used “song” for the soundtrack.

While in Iran, he composed more than hundred songs, most of which were among the most popular songs of the time. He also composed soundtracks for tens of films. His reputation as soundtrack composer greatly helped the popularity and sales of films.

Monfaredzadeh left Iran for the United States in one year after the Islamic Revolution, to protest the persecution of dissidents. He has not returned to Iran since then and during this time he has composed about 20 songs and soundtracks.

Elahe Boghrat

Elahe Boghrat was born in 1957 in Sari (northern Iran) to a cultural family. She began her university studies at the National University of Iran (Tehran) in the field of jurisprudence and graduated in 1975, but did not pass the 14-units course in Islamic education (which was made compulsory after the revolution). As a result, the university refused to grant her a degree for years.

Boghrat became a member of the Communist Organization of the People’s Fedayeen in 1980 and had a political and semi-secret organizational life until 1989. In 1990, she intellectually and in practice left the Fadaiyan organization and secretly and illegally left Iran and fled to Germany. She received her refuge status (refuge asylum) in Germany, and in 1993 started studying at the University of Berlin, where she received a bachelor’s degree in political science. After graduation she started working full-time as a journalist.

Her first job was launching a website called “Journalist” and since 1995 she has been writing analytical-political articles for Kayhan London (an independent news magazine) and since 2013 she has been the editor in chief.

Elahe Boghrat also has two collections of short stories called “Feminine” and “Crazy House Notes” and a book called “Names and Looks” which is a collection of her conversations with literary and artistic figures.