The music of Iran's Sufis has been used as a springboard for the imaginative playing of Darioosh or Dariush Talai. A master of the six-stringed, lute-like tar and the three-stringed, lute-like sitar, Talai has been called one of the most qualified interpreters of traditional Iranian music. According to world music magazine Ethno Tempos, Talai plays "with a discipline of a precision which by no means prevents inventiveness and the discrete experimentation." Born in 1952, Talai began studying the tar with Ali Akbar Shahnazi at the age of ten. He spent several years studying the Radif, which includes the 12 Iranian modal systems and their derivatives, with such teachers as Abdollan Davami. Talai's 1996 performance with Indian percussionist Madjid Khalady in Utrecht was recorded and released as In Concert by the Iranian record label Al Sur-Musisoft. ~ Craig Harris