Composer and performer Ashkan Layegh's latest piece Ephemerality and Recurrence, brings together the four musicians of his own quartet with four musicians from the London Sinfonietta. His compositional and improvising techniques transform his influences from Persian music into something about the present, rather than a reference to the past.
This new London Sinfonietta commission will be premiered on Thursday 20 November 2025 as part of the London Jazz Festival.
This composition has evolved out of the London Sinfonietta’s Writing the Future programme with support from the Jerwood Foundation, PRSF and Michael & Patricia McLaren Turner
More about Askhan Layegh
Born in Tehran, Iran in 1997 Ashkan started learning the piano at the age of 6. He won First Prize at the International Barbad Piano Competition, Shiraz, in 2017. Shortly after the competition, the Chair of the Jury, Layla Ramezan, the Lausanne-based Iranian concert pianist, introduced Ashkan to the British conductor Mark Stephenson. In December 2017, with the encouragement and support of Mark, Ashkan auditioned for both the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music in London.
He is the first young musician from Iran since the Revolution to be offered places at both institutions, and he won a full scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music. Since starting his studies at the Royal Academy of Music in September 2018, Ashkan Layegh has been studying the piano with Joanna MacGregor OBE.
In addition to his piano studies, Ashkan is studying composition at the RAM. He is a keen jazz pianist, and he also plays Electric/Acoustic Guitar and the Setar – a traditional Persian Instrument. In December 2019, he formed his own ensemble, Ashkan Layegh Quartet - Phemo - to perform his own music.
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