Alinaghi Vaziri (October 9, 1886 – September 8, 1979), commonly remembered as Colonel Vaziri, occupies a unique and transformative place in the history of Iranian music. At once a soldier, intellectual, composer, educator, and reformer, Vaziri bridged the traditional musical culture of Iran with the notational and pedagogical methods of the West. His impact was so great that nearly every discussion of modern Iranian music, from orchestral performance to the codification of the radif (the traditional repertoire of Persian classical music), invokes his name either in admiration or in critique.
Vaziri’s career spanned a period of seismic change in Iran: the Constitutional Revolution, the fall of the Qajar dynasty, the modernization efforts of Reza Shah, and the early decades of the Pahlavi state. Within this shifting political and cultural environment, he managed to establish institutions, compose works, write books, and inspire generations of students who carried his legacy forward. His innovations — such as introducing new symbols for Iranian accidentals (sori and koron), creating the first systematic notations of the radif, and advocating for equal temperament in Iranian music — redefined how Iranians understood their musical heritage.
Though criticized by some traditionalists for importing Western concepts too eagerly, and at times accused of distorting the essence of Persian music, Vaziri’s influence cannot be denied. He is remembered as both an audacious reformer and a devoted preserver of Iranian culture, a man whose ambition to modernize never obscured his love for his homeland’s art.
