In Tehran, a young boy arises to the sounds of his mother playing Mozart's Adagio in E Major. It's quite different from the buzz of an alarm clock, but Cyrus Forough's mother wants her son to awaken to one of his loves—the violin. A few years prior, they traveled from their home to Rome to purchase his first violin. By the age of six, he had his first television performance; and, by nine, he was entertaining royalty and under the tutelage of Arthur Grumiaux at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels.

"Grumiaux didn't need a nine-year-old in his class; he was teaching college students," recalls Forough. "He heard something." That something was Forough's passion for music. Even at a young age, he could express his emotions through the violin. "We play as we are," says Forough. "When you become connected with your inner self, and you have something to say, and you have to share that, I would say that there is no other better medium than being a performer."

Now a professor of violin in the School of Music, Forough has studied with accomplished violinists from Brussels to Moscow to Bloomington, home of Indiana University. He says he has the same passion for teaching as he does for playing: "When I hear a very gifted student, I find it to be a huge responsibility, for all of us, to take care of this person. If a student would ask, 'Who is your favorite?' I would say, 'You!'"

For his contributions to classical music, he recently received the prestigious Persian Golden Lioness Award from The World Academy of Arts, Literature, and Media.

Lisa Kay Davis (HS'09)