Josh Charney is a pianist, composer, and musicologist from northern California. His music weaves together intricate rhythmic structures, improvisation, and narrative expression. As both a composer and performer, he’s released several recordings, including albums with the Sibarg Ensemble, a group that uniquely blends traditional Iranian music with jazz, and with his experimental jazz trio, Chaos Magic. He’s also composed works for theater, such as Bula Matari: Breaker of Rocks, a one-act opera premiered in San Diego in 2018.
Charney holds a PhD in Music from the University of California, San Diego, where he completed the Integrative Studies Program, focusing on creative practice and research. His dissertation examined the Shiraz Arts Festival (1967–1977), an international event in Iran that served as a cultural arena for negotiating democracy, identity, and artistic exchange in the years preceding the Revolution. Portions of this research appear in Performing Iran: Culture, Performance, Theatre (2021).