50 Iranian-Americans You Should Know: Lily Afshar

Iranians have been making significant contributions to business, science, culture and entertainment in the United States since the early 20th century. Today, there are almost one million people of Iranian origin living in the United States. In this series, IranWire profiles the Iranian-Americans you should know, highlighting their achievements and careers, and asking what it means to be part of one of America’s most educated and successful communities.

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Lily Afshar is an award-winning classical guitarist and head of the guitar program at the University of Memphis in Tennessee. She is also the first woman in the world to be awarded a Doctor of Music degree in guitar performance.

Born in 1960, Afshar grew up in Tehran, although her family roots are in Iran’s northeastern Azerbaijan province—a region famed for local string instruments like the tar and the saz.

Afshar discovered her passion for the guitar at age 10 while visiting a cousin who had one. Her father bought her her own guitar and signed her up for lessons.

In 1977, she moved to the US, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in music at the Boston Conservatory.

Although Iranians traveled freely to the US before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Afshar had never seen the country before she moved.

“I was taken aback at the large size of everything: cars, roads, hamburgers,” she tells IranWire. “I noticed that I could get any sheet music and record I wanted and I had all at my disposal. I would buy whatever music I would find in the shops. I appreciated this very much since it was not something readily available in Iran.” 

But in 1979, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his supporters seized power, from the shah, denounced America as the Great Satan, and took US embassy staff hostage, Iranians in the US felt the effects of the severed relationship and new US sanctions.

“We were all very worried,” Afshar says. “Our future was uncertain. As students, we were worried about tuition and living expenses that would come from our parents and the difficulty of receiving that. We were worried about our family in Iran and all the changes and danger they were facing.”

Creativity provided a refuge. “I basically immersed myself in my work and put the frustration and worry into my guitar. I practiced all day long, most of the time 10 hours a day.”

Afshar pursued her Master of Music degree at the New England Conservatory in Boston and her doctorate at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

She later contunued her studies abroad, taking summer classes in Banff, Alberta and Aspen, Colorado and spent three summers receiving advanced training at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy.

She has since received numerous awards and has served as the United States Information Agency’s artistic ambassador to Africa.

Afshar is now a tenured professor at the University of Memphis, where she is head of the guitar program.

In her recordings, Afshar often introduces Persian and other regional themes. Her 1999 release, A Jug of Wine and Thou, was based on the poetry of Omar Khayyam. A 2013 album was titled One Thousand and One Nights.

In the early 2000s, after a 20-year absence, Afshar began teaching summer master classes in Iran.

She has also performed at some of Iran’s top venues, although to do so she must secure permission from the Ministry of Culture, which vets an artist’s biography, past performances, and planned program several months in advance.

Looking back on her generation of Iranian-Americans, Afshar has noticed how the two identities have merged.

“A lot of the students [I knew] have since graduated and found jobs and established residency or citizenship in the USA,” she says. “They have stayed on to make a new home for themselves.  Their children are Americanized and some do not even speak Persian, but their grandparents visit them frequently from Iran. So their stay in the States in no longer temporary, but permanent.”