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Iranian arranger, composer, conductor and violinist Fereydoon Shahbazyan was born into a musical family on 11 June 1942 in Tehran, where, inspired by his violinist father, he studied at the Higher Conservatory of Music and learned violin with Ataollah Khadem Misagh, Serge Khutsif and Luigi Pasanari. Later he studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Tehran University.
At seventeen he joined the Tehran Symphony Orchestra. Later he collaborated with the Radio Flowers Orchestra and in 1966 he became the leader of the radio choir and symphony orchestra.
During the 1960s he began writing film music, and composed many pieces for film and TV, with soundtracks including Aghaye hiroglyphe ('Mr Hieroglyph'), Autumn, Dusters, Eye of the Hurricane, Hiva, Horse, Innocence Lost, Life, Silence of the Sea, Silken Chains, Son of Fortune, Sufferance and Ecstasy, The Fourth Child, The Last Supper, The Stone Lion, The Time I Came Back and Towards Simorgh.
With Ali Moallem Damghani he formed Iran's Radio and Television Music Council.
He composed for the Farabi Orchestra, was conductor of the National Orchestra of Iran from 2016 until 2019, and also acted as music consultant to the Roudaki Foundation. During his career he was active in the fields of classical music, Iranian classical music, Iranian traditional music and pop music, and he made a big impact on music in Iran.
Fereydoon Shahbazyan died from acute respiratory issues in Tehran on the morning of 11 January 2025, aged eighty-two, after spending two days in hospital.