Ali-Naqi Vaziri

Ali-Naqi Vaziri, also transcribed as Ali Naghi Vaziri (Persian: علی نقی وزیری) (October 1, 1886 in Tehran, Persia – September 9, 1979) was a composer, thinker and a celebrated player of the tar. He is considered a revolutionary icon in the history of 20th-century Persian music.
Ali-Naqi Vaziri (also known as Colonel Vaziri) is one of the seven children of Musa Khan Vaziri (a prominent official in the Persian Cossack Brigade) and Bibi Khatoon Astarabadi, a notable Iranian writer, satirist and one of the pioneering figures in the women’s movement of Iran; her book Ma’ayeb al-Rejal (Failings of Men, also translated as Vices of Men) is considered by some as the first declaration of women’s rights in the modern history of Iran. The celebrated artistic painter Hassan Ali Khan Vaziri is Ali-Naqi’s brother.
Ali-Naqi Vaziri was a master of Persian classical music, so he was able to play the tar in a style very reminiscent of that of Mirza Abdollah. He always looked for new dimensions and perspectives in musical expression, and by doing so he revolutionized the style of playing the tar. He was the first to transcribe the classical radif of the Persian music. He developed the sori and koron symbols to annotate Persian quarter-tone notes in standardized musical notation.
Vaziri for years was the director of the Tehran Conservatory of Music and a professor at the University of Tehran.