Who we are
Cultural Interchange-360 is a non-profit organization, striving to be a crossroad for cultures across the world. Aiming for an enriched experience, it strives to introduce, promote, and educate its audience on various artistic elements of different cultures.
The company’s main objectives revolves around a few important concepts, through which its reach has expanded:
Celebrating Diversity:
is one of CI360’s main focuses. The Artistic Directors of the company are Canadian immigrants from an Iranian descent and therefore their involvement with the Canadian-Iranian community is a natural part of CI360’s activities. The reach however doesn’t get limited to this community only. We have collaborated with and always invite musicians and artists from different communities to join us. Fusing traditional/modal with classical western music has been in the company’s report card. Cultural interchange-360 has had performances in many languages including, but not limited to Armenian, Turkish, German and Persian.
Artistic Heterogeneity:
another focus of CI360, has been an integral part of our performances. Every major production of the company has featured artistic elements other than the musical performance. We have had visual artists, dancers, dramatic artists, visual-media and film artists, story tellers, sharing their talent with us off and on stage. The productions of CI-360 engage all the senses of its audience.
Education:
has been at the heart of CI360’s productions. This aspect of the mission has been sometimes delivered directly and some other times indirectly, through raising awareness and provoking thoughts in the audience. The presence of a message or a story is the constant of the productions. The stories benefit from a wide variety of subjects such as, philosophy of love, human’s destiny on earth and the vicious cycle of wars, life and legacy of renowned artists, etc.
Board of Directors:
Amir Rahbar
Amir Rahbar was born in Tehran-Iran in 1952. He was introduced to music in early childhood by playing the Accordion and Tombak (Iranian percussion).
He started his piano lessons with Mr. Khachaturian and continued his music educations with Dr. Hamid Zahedi (Harmony), Dr. Alireza Mashayekhi (Harmony), Dr. Sharif Lotfi (Solfege, Fundamentals of music performance) and Mr. Mehran Rouhani (Harmony, Counter point).
He has been living in Toronto-Canada since 1997, and has worked with different Iranian and international musicians by composing, arranging and performing music.
Amir is the co-founder and the visionary musician behind all artistic endeavors of Cultural Interchange-360.
Golrokh Aminian
Golrokh Aminian (Khodabandehlou) is a trained soprano who started her music education as a child by learning to play the violin. She studied vocal techniques in Iran under the supervision of Mrs. Sanousian and was also a member of the Iran Youth Choir at Tehran Roudaki (Vahdat) Hall. Golrokh continued her vocal training in Toronto Royal Conservatory of Music.
In 2015, Golrokh co-founded, together with Amir Rahbar, "Cultural Interchange - 360", a not for profit organization aiming at becoming a cross-cultural bridge for bringing people of different backgrounds together, through music and other performing arts.
Golrokh holds a BA in Mathematics and a second BA in Business Administration and Finance. When not singing, she works full time as a Business Intelligence Manager in the corporate world, and as a loving mom at home.
