Alfred Jean Baptiste Lemaire

Alfred Jean-Baptiste Lemaire (15 January 1842 – 24 February 1907) was a French military musician and composer. He is known for teaching at the music department of Dar ul-Funun during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, and for composing the first Iranian national anthem. Life Lemaire was born in Aire-sur-la-Lys and entered the Paris Conservatory in 1855, graduating in flute and composition in 1863. By 1867 he had become Deputy Music Master for the Infantry of the Imperial Guard. When Naser al-Din Shah visited Paris, he admired the French military bands that had welcomed him. At the time Iranian military music had used only traditional drums (naqareh) and trumpets (karnay). On his return to Iran in 1867 the shah asked his ambassador to France, Hassan-Ali Garrussi, to hire a French musician to reorganize his military orchestras along Western European lines. Adolphe Niel, then France’s Defence Minister, selected Lemaire to take up the post. Once in Iran, Lemaire procured western instruments and organized the training of military musicians at the Dar ul-Funun, where his students included Darvish Khan, and Gholam Reza Minbashian (Salar Mo’azez), a leading pioneer of Western classical