Hormoz Farhat (; 9 August 1928 – 16 August 2021) was a Persian-American composer and ethnomusicologist who spent much of his career in Dublin, Ireland. An emeritus professor of music, he was a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. Described by the Irish Times as a "a gifted and distinctive composer of contemporary classical music," his compositions include orchestral, concertante, piano and choral music, as well string quartets and chamber works. He also wrote numerous film scores, including that of Dariush Mehrjui's 1969 film The Cow. However, his musicological research dominates his legacy; his writings on the music of Iran—a country which he insisted be called 'Persia'—were pivotal in ethnomusicology, particularly his acclaimed 1990 study The Dastgah Concept in Persian Music. Life and career Hormoz Farhat was born on 9 August 1928, in Tehran, the capital city of what was then Imperial State of Persia, but renamed in 1935 as Iran. His father Ebrahim Farat was a senior official at the Persian Ministry of Finance married to his mother Sedique. The Farhat family had descended from a long line of "secularised Muslims", many of whom were civil servicemen like Ebrahim. His cousin Shahin Farhat also became a composer. According to Farhat himself, his early exposure to Iranian music was limited to his father occasionally playing the tar. Instead, he recalls that his ""early musical outlook was mainly western", later filtered through the country's radio station that was established in 1939. Farhat later moved to the United States and received a BA in music from the University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA (1953), an MA in composition from Mills College, California (1955), and a Ph.D. in composition and ethnomusicology from UCLA (1965). He studied composition with Darius Milhaud, Lukas Foss, and Roy Harris. In 1959, Farhat founded the Music of Persia Performance Group at UCLA. During his years in California Farhat worked first as an assistant professor of music at California State University, Long Beach (1961–64) and then as associate professor of music at University of California, Los Angeles (1964–69). On returning to Iran he became a professor and head of the music department at the University of Tehran, (1970–78) as well as the head of the Music Council in the National Iranian Radio and Television Network (1969–78) and Shiraz Arts Festival. He was vice-chancellor at Farabi University in Tehran (1975–77). In 1972 and 1973, he was invited as a visiting professor