Born in Neyshabur in 1955, he began his musical training at the age of six with his father Hassan Meshkatian, who was a professional tar and santur player.

He learned the radif, the total collection of more than 200 gushehs — traditional melodic entities — in all 12 dastgahs, studying under Iranian maestros Nur-Ali Borumand and Dariush Safvat.

He was also a student of Mohammad-Taqi Masudieh, Abdollah Davami, Saeid Hormozi, and Yusef Forutan, who helped him improve his skills.
After some years, he became one of Iran’s most prominent musicians.

In 1977, Meshkatian founded the Aref  Ensemble with Hossein Alizadeh and Mohammadreza Lotfi. The group performed many concerts in Iran, Europe, and the Americas. He was also one of the founding members of the Chavosh Artistic and Cultural Foundation. The Chavosh foundation has played a major role in the development of Iranian music for a few decades.

He also performed with some of Iran’s greatest vocalists like Mohammadreza Shajarian, Shahram Nazeri, and Iraj Bastami.

The collaborations resulted in the creation of the albums “Bidad”, “The Court of the Beloved”, “Mystery of Love”, “Nava”, and “Dastan”, which are all very popular in Iran.

Parviz Meshkatian

Meshkatian toured Europe and Asia and regularly performed in countries such as France, Germany, England, Sweden, Netherlands, and Denmark. In the spring of 1982 he published the book Twenty Pieces for Santour. In spring of 1992 Meshkatian and the Aref Ensemble won the first prize of the Spirit of the Earth Festival in England.

Meshkatian died on September 21, 2009 of a heart attack