«...Ramezan and Piri succeed in captivating the audience with a highly concentrated and new sounding style of play. There are not the pianists sitting on the grand piano who routinely unwind the program, but researchers who walk through the program with open eyes, nimble fingers and light-footed, fearless, but always with the greatest respect to challenge the audience to the greatest possible applause after each work. And they make no secret of the genius with which Fazil Say is afflicted when they set his four-hand piece « Night » as the highlight of the evening.»
(M. Zerban, O - Ton)
Divan Duo, The cross-cultural piano duo of Layla Ramezan and Nazanin Piri, are both from Iran and share a passion for piano music for four hands, from the present and past, well-known and less well-known.
Layla and Nazanin have lived and studied in France and Germany. Both have settled in Switzerland for different reasons and this is where their paths then crossed.
Together, they are in harmony with cultures from East and West and live out this cross-cultural harmony in music.
Layla Ramezan performs regularly in France and Switzerland, as well as in many places further afield such as Collège des Bernadins in Paris, Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, Aga Kahn Museum in Toronto, Roodaki Hall in Tehran, Hafez Hall in Shiraz, and at major festivals such as the Athénéennes in Geneva, the Schubertiade in Sion and the Alba Music Festival in Italy. Her concerts have been broadcast on Radio France, RFI, Radio Suisse Romande, NPO Radio Netherlands and CBC Radio Canada,WDR and Deutschlandfunk.
Along with her solo projects, Layla has had the privilege to work with many prominent musicians such as William Blank, Helmut Deutsch, Jean-Claude Pennetier and Philippe Albera and has performed with Jean-Marc Luisada, Eliane Reyes, Christophe Beau, Brigitte Balleys and Trio Chemirani. She has also worked closely with composers such as Tristan Murail, Luis Naon, Nicolas Bolens and Michael Jarrell.
Layla is currently preparing a four-part CD series on the label Paraty Records/Hamonia Mundi for her project, 100 years of Iranian Piano Music, to be distributed by Harmonia Mundi. The first CD of this quartet « Iranian Composers from 1950 » was released in January 2017 and the second volume « Sheherezade by Alireza Mashayekhi » in Mai 2019.
Layla began her piano studies in Tehran before moving to Paris in 2000 to study at the École Normale de Musique de Paris “Alfred Cortot” with Jean Micault and Devi Erlih. She also studied with Jacqueline Bourgès-Maunoury and Christophe Bukudjian at the Conservatoire National de Saint-Maur des Fossés, where she obtained a diploma of Music Studies with high distinction. Then she moved to Lausanne where she currently lives, obtaining two Master’s degrees in Interpretation and Collaborative Piano from the Haute École de Musique with Christian Favre and Marc Pantillon.
She is a Laureate of the Engelberts Foundation for Art and Culture in Switzerland and the Albert Roussel Foundation in France.
Nazanin Piri, born in Tehran, studied piano at the Lübeck University of Music in the class of Prof. M. Fock. In 2010 she completed her Master studies at International College of Music in Hamburg and in musicology at Free University Berlin. She studied with the renown pianists like Maxim Philipov, Konstanze Eickhorst, Heidrun Holtmann, Peter Feuchtwanger, Ludwig Pflanz, Anthony Spiri and Herbert Wiedemann. Currently she continues studying in the class of Prof. Marisa Somma.
The collaboration with composer Friedhelm Döhl influenced her musical life, to whom she still feels a connection since the studies of his "Three Ballads of Paul Celan". She regularly performs his works, recently for the Förderkreis für Neue Musik in „Pyramid Hall“ in Heilbronn. She is a multiple winner of "Jugend musiziert" at national level.
As a soloist and chamber musician, she has given numerous concerts with violinist Fiona Rholffs in Germany and France, with SARGO ensemble in Swirzerland, with the choreographer Modjgan Hashemian during the Emil-Nolde exhibition opening in 2010. In 2013 shortly after her piano recital at Chilehaus in Hamburg, her first CD recording was published on Veraphone. Currently she is flutist and pianist for the Elias Nardi Ensemble and performs regularly at concerts in Italy, Germany, Romania, Belgium and Switzerland. In 2015, her second album "Flowers of Fragility" produced by Analogy Records, came out. In concert series "Naked Jazz“ (Milan) "Jazz Nouveau“ (Bukarest) and Ambria Jazz Festival she shared the stage with prominent musicians like Max de Aloe, Daniele di Bonaventura, Ares Tavolazzi, Franco Baggiani, Ermanno Librasi, Emanuele Le Pera, Max Pizio and Claudio Farinone and Max Pizio. In November 2017, the Elias Nardi Group toured with the legendary Italian jazz bassist Ares Tavolazzi in Germany, where her own arrangements and works were played.
Since 2018 she teaches piano at the conservatory in Bern. With her class, she has recently worked on contemporary works by the Bernese composers l’art pour L’aar. Since 2019 she has been studying composition in the class of Prof. Daniel Glaus.
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