Faraz Minooei Was born in Tehran and began playing santur at the age nine. While studying with Behnam Mehrabi ,he found a deep spiritual desire to study music and saw music as an  "unexplainable souvenir from the eternal truth".  Faraz received his B.A. from San Francisco State University in 2008 as a Nagle Scholar and the first World/Jazz music major with santur as his primary instrument. As a full-time musician, Faraz is an active performer, composer, ethnomusicologist and a teacher. He views studying music as a never ending project and has had the good fortune to study with masters such as M. R.  Lotfi, H. Omoumi, Royal Hartigan, Hafez Modirzadeh and Christopher Dobrian.  Since 2006, he has lectured and performed at many universities such as SFSU, UCI, UCLA, and UCSC and the Society of Ethnomusicology. He has performed with many ensembles in the United Sates among which was the collaboration with the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo Yo Ma and Kayhan Kalhor, for the 50th anniversary of the Lincoln Center in 2009. Recipient of many scholarships and grants, Faraz also has a passion for understanding the intricacies of the human mind and the world around him and refers to "thinking" as his hobby. He is now continuing on the path of music in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology as a graduate student in University of California in Irvine.