Galeet Dardashti

A musician and scholar of Middle-Eastern Jewish music, Galeet Dardashti was born into a family of singers. Her grandfather Younes, a master of Persian classical music, was known as the “Nightingale of Iran.” Her father Farid was a popular young vocalist in Iran, and then later became a cantor, and her mother Sheila was an Ashkenazic folk singer. As a child, Galeet Dardashti lived in Los Angeles, while her father worked as a cantor at the Valley Beth Shalom synagogue. She earned a PhD in Anthropology and has taught at New York University and the Jewish Theological Seminary. She is also the founder and leader of the all-woman band, Divahn. Her album Monajat contains her original compositions, contains her original compositions, in which she mixed her own singing with samples of her grandfather’s voice.