Iraj

Hossein Khajeh Amiri was born on 1 January 1933 (11 Dey 1311 in the Iranian calendar) in Khaledabad, near Natanz in Isfahan Province, into a family with deep roots in the Isfahan school of Persian singing. His grandfather, Molla Mirza, was a well known singer of the era of Naser al-Din Shah, and his father, Nematollah, who had a fine voice and knew the radif, taught him for many years. He later recalled that his father had been his first teacher, from the age of seven. As a child he also took part in ta'zieh, the traditional passion plays, and learned singing from performers who knew the classical modes.

After finishing primary school he moved to Tehran. At a gathering there he was heard by Hamid Vafadar, brother of the composer Majid Vafadar, who introduced him to the violinist and master teacher Abolhassan Saba. He studied with Saba from 1947 for two years, and Saba recommended him to Ebrahim Mansouri, who ran the music of Radio Iran, so that he began singing on the radio without an audition.

Around 1950 he was admitted to the army officers' college, where he sang on Friday evenings on the army's radio programme with the orchestra of Mohammad Bahar-lu. There he formed a lifelong friendship with the singer Akbar Golpayegani (Golpa). Because army regulations did not allow personnel to perform under their own names, he adopted the name of his brother, Iraj, and under it he sang with many of the leading radio orchestras of the time.

In 1957 Davoud Pirnia, founder of the Golha radio programmes, invited him to take part. His first appearance was Barg-e Sabz 43, in the Shur and Abu Ata modes, with Ali Tajvidi, Farhang Sharif and Amir Naser Eftetah. He went on to sing in 213 Golha programmes, including Barg-e Sabz, Golha-ye Rangarang, Yek Shakh-e Gol and Golha-ye Tazeh, working with musicians such as Parviz Yahaghi, Homayoun Khorram, Habibollah Badiei, Jalil Shahnaz, Hassan Kassai, Ahmad Ebadi, Javad Maroufi and Asadollah Malek.

He was equally famous for his film songs. Reports put the number of films he sang for at about 105, while he himself once spoke of 157. His voice became closely linked with the actor Mohammad Ali Fardin, especially after Ganj-e Qarun (1965), for which he sang "Ali Bi-gham" and other songs. In these films he often sang Bayat-e Tehran, the urban street style known as avaz-e kucheh baghi, which he lifted to a new artistic standard through his vocal power and his command of the radif. His well known works include "Golrizan", "Afsoon-e Saz", "Sham-e Shab Afrooz", "Zemzemeh-ye Chupan" and "Mahv-e Tamasha".

After the 1979 revolution he was largely excluded from official musical life. He said he had not been formally banned but was given no work, and that he went on singing at private gatherings. He sang at the Fajr music festival in Shiraz in the late 1990s, but a planned appearance in Tehran in 2014 was cancelled by the culture ministry. On 31 May 2016 he finally returned to a public stage in Bandar Abbas, and on 14 August 2017 he performed in Tehran with his son Ehsan, the two singing "Parandeh" together. In 2018 a book about him, Iraj, the Genius of Iranian Singing, was launched at the Tehran International Book Fair, and he recorded duets with the singer Salar Aghili. He also ran a music school in Tehran, Avaye Iraj.

Iraj was married twice. With his first wife, Touran Solattash, he had three children, Homayoun, Houman and Haleh. With his second wife, Farzaneh Amiminejad, he had two more, the pop singer Ehsan Khajeh Amiri and Elika Khajeh Amiri, a music teacher and producer. Although many Iranian artists left the country after 1979, he never did. Asked why, he said in a television interview broadcast on the Nasim network that he loved Iran and its people and could not live anywhere else in the world.

Iraj died in Tehran on Wednesday 12 August 2026 (21 Mordad 1405), aged 93; some Iranian reports gave his age as 94. He had been unwell for some time with health problems related to old age, and had been admitted to hospital several times in the preceding months. Nour News reported that he was receiving special care at home at the time of his death. The Iran Music House confirmed his death in a statement.

His funeral was held on the morning of Friday 14 August outside Vahdat Hall in Tehran, attended by his family, a large crowd of admirers and many musicians. His son Ehsan spoke and sang in his memory, the singers Alireza Eftekhari, Ali Asghar Shahzeidi and Ali Jahandar performed, and Mohammad Mousavi played the ney. Hamidreza Nourbakhsh, head of the Iran Music House, said Iraj could not be separated from the music of the land. He was then buried in the artists' section of Behesht-e Zahra cemetery. A memorial gathering followed on 18 August.

Tributes came from musicians including Alireza Ghorbani, Salar Aghili and Kayhan Kalhor. The Minister of Culture, Seyyed Abbas Salehi, called him an incomparable master of music, and the government spokeswoman, Fatemeh Mohajerani, described his voice as part of Iran's auditory heritage.

Iraj is remembered as one of the last members of the brilliant generation of twentieth century Iranian vocalists, and as one of the few singers whose voice was described as shesh dang, of exceptional height and volume. The ney master Hassan Kassai is credited with giving him the title Pahlavan-e Avaz, and at a tribute in 2013 Mohammad Reza Shajarian said that Iraj's voice was the measure and standard in the history of Iranian singing. His recordings for Golha remain part of the classical canon, while his film songs are woven into the memories of several generations of Iranians. In 2024 he received a lifetime achievement Hafez statuette at the Ali Moallem theatre and music celebration.