Biographies
Joolaee Trio
Having its origins in the long-term collaboration of the Kamancheh virtuoso Misagh Joolaee with his duo partners Schaghajegh Nosrati (piano) and Sebastian Flaig (percussion) the Joolaee Trio was founded in 2021 and made its acclaimed stage debut at the Rudolstadt festival in the following year. Their celebrated performance led to further engagements at prestigious venues and festivals such as Sendesaal Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein-Musikfestival, Jazz Meets World Festival Prague, Radeberger-Konzerte Köln, Heidelberger Frühling and Pierre Boulez Hall Berlin.
The musical language of the trio is characterised by rhythmical originality and lyrical narratives, virtuosic runs and whispered silence. Displaying influences of Persian, (classical) European and contemporary music, the Joolaee Trio gives rise to a unique language and sonority in the context of the musical dialogue. The repertoire of the trio is mostly original/self-composed, but it also contains own arrangements of Turkish and Persian folk songs.
Individual Biographies
Schaghajegh Nosrati
Schaghajegh Nosrati, born in Bochum in 1989, is an extremely versatile musician and was able to establish herself as a concert pianist early on thanks to her outstan-
ding reputation as a Bach interpreter. Her international breakt-hrough came with her success as a prizewinner at the 2014 Leipzig Bach Competition, but above all through her increa-sing musical collabora-
tion with Sir András Schiff who praised the "astonishing clarity, purity and maturity" of her Bach playing and her associated understan-ding of music.
In recent years, the pianist has performed at many renowned venues, including the Essen Philharmonie (as part of the Ruhr Piano Festival, standing in for Daniel Barenboim), at the Palais des Beaux Arts Brussels (Bozar), the Lucerne Festival, the Tonhalle Zurich, the Vancouver Playhouse, the Kennedy Center Washington, Palau de la Música Catalana Barcelona, the Berlin Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall London and Carnegie Hall in New York. In the 2022/23 season, Schaghajegh Nosrati was "Artist in Residence" at the Beethovenhaus Bonn and soloist with the Beethovenorchester Bonn.
The pianist accepted invitations from the Bochum Symphony Orchestra to perform at the Anneliese Brost Forum. At the Bach Montréal Festival, she performed with the festival orchestra under the direction of Rein- hard Goebel, and she also made her highly successful debut with the Bremen Philharmo-nic Orchestra.
She played several times at the Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin, amongst others in 2019, standing in for Radu Lupu.
Another highlight of the pianist's career to date was her 2018 tour with Sir András Schiff and the Cappella Andrea Barca, performing J.S. Bach's concertos for two pianos at venues including the Elbphilharmonie Ham-burg, Musikverein Vienna and KKL Lucerne.
The pianist has released 7 CDs. Her album with J.S. Bach “Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1”, released in 2022, was awarded the German Record Critics' Prize (Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik) in quarter 4/2022, as was her first chamber music CD “Morgenwind” with the Joolaee Trio (quarter 1/2025), released with GWK Records.
In parallel to her concert career, Schaghajegh Nosrati became involved in teaching at an early stage. Between 2015 and 2019, she worked as a lecturer at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. Since 2020, she holds a position as assistant to Sir András Schiff at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin.
Misagh Joolaee
Born in 1983 in Mashhad and having grown up in the northern Iranian province of Mazandaran, Misagh Joolaee began to play the violin at the age of eight. Within 5 years he accomplished learning of the persian-classical repertoire Radif. In 1996 Misagh won the first prize in violin solo competition at Fajr Music Festival, the most prestigious music festival in Iran, at the age of 13 in the young performer’s category on violin. Furthermore, he studied setar, tar and especially intensively kamancheh with various iranian masters. Then followed by an eductation on piano and violin in European Classical Music.
His musical career is characterized by a great versatility in working with musicians of different countries. In 2009 he founded the ensemble Aavaan, with which he performed his own compositions and won the competition Creole – Global Music in 2010 in Germany.
Misagh was also a lecturer at the World Music Faculty of the University in Hildesheim from 2011 to 2014.
In 2014, he appeared as a kamancheh soloist in the performance of the 5th Symphony of Awet Terterjan with the State Orchestra of Braun-schweig and in 2021 as kamancheh soloist on tour in the Netherlands with Cappella Amsterdam, playing amongst others in Muziekgebouw Amsterdam. In 2022 he has also played as part of the theater-music project Negar in the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
All of Misagh´s solo Kamancheh CDs, "Ferne" (2020), "Unknown Nearness" (2021) and "Qanat" (2022), received the most respected German Record Critics Award “Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik”. Also "Morgenwind", his debut CD with Joolaee Trio, received the German Record Critics Award "Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik" in 2025.
Sebastian Flaig
Freiburg born Sebastian Flaig studied ethnical percussion and jazz drumset and composition at the University for Music in Leipzig.
In order to deepen his knowledge about oriental percussion he lived in Istanbul for one year and studied with different masters such as the Darabuka virtuoso Misirli Ahmet.
His stylistic spectrum covers a wide range from oriental music to Jazz up to early music and is expressed in different ensembles and in collaboration with different artists such as the Taner Akyol Trio, Maya Youssef, Ensemble Resonanz, Mysteries of Bulgarian voices and others.
In 2017 the CD “Syrian dreams” by Maya Youssef was awarded the German Record Critics’ Award as well as his Duo CDs "From Afar" (2019) and "Qanat" (2022) with Misagh Joolaee and his Trio CD "Morgenwind" (2024) with the Joolaee Trio.
Sebastian Flaig is engaged in composing music for theatre, broadcast and documentaries.