Jian Ghomeshi (born June 9, 1967) is a Canadian broadcaster, writer, and musical artist born in London, England, and raised in Toronto, Ontario. He is best known as a national on-air personality on CBC Television and CBC Radio, and is currently host of the daily arts and entertainment program Q on CBC Radio One. He has hosted various series on television and radio including The National Playlist, Sounds Like Canada, ZeD and The End. He spent three years as the host of the Gemini-award winning TV program >play, where he interviewed subjects ranging from Woody Allen to Johnny Rotten to Jane Fonda. He has written for numerous publications including the Washington Post and The Globe and Mail. He first came to public attention as a singer and songwriter in the multi-platinum selling folk rock group Moxy Früvous. Ghomeshi is of Iranian heritage and is also a Canadian citizen.[1] He graduated with merit from York University with a degree in political science and history.
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Career
Radio and television
He is the host of the live daily arts and entertainment program Q on CBC Radio One and has hosted numerous CBC radio and television shows. He is also a regular contributor to the prime-time CBC Newsworld program, CBC News: The Hour. He has hosted documentary specials for CBC Television, and acted as the substitute host on Sounds Like Canada in summer 2006. In 2002, Ghomeshi was hired as the host of CBC Newsworld's >play, a show about the arts in Canada and abroad. >play ran for three seasons, then was revamped in April 2004 to focus on higher-impact specials. Examples include the critically acclaimed Screw the Vote and >play Goes to Pot. Ghomeshi also did the weekly entertainment report on the Toronto edition of Canada Now. In January 2005, Ghomeshi became a regular on-air columnist for CBC News: The Hour. In May 2006, he finished a documentary series, entitled The End, which described technology's effects on television, radio, and print and the future of the mediums. Ghomeshi hosted the national radio series 50 Tracks and 50 Tracks: The Canadian Version on CBC Radio One and CBC Radio Two. In June 2005, he guest-hosted Radio One's Sounds Like Canada and returned to guest-host again for June, July and August of 2006. From fall 2005 until spring 2006, he hosted a program on CBC Radio One called The National Playlist. Since April 16, 2007, Ghomeshi has been the host of Q, an afternoon arts and entertainment program on CBC Radio One as part of a retooling of Radio One and Two to appeal to younger listeners. In the first week of the show, Ghomeshi brought in high profile guests such as Loreena McKennitt, Joel Plaskett, and Harry Connick, Jr. The show airs all across Canada on CBC Radio One at 2pm and 10pm (2:30 and 10:30 in NFLD) and on Sirius Satellite Radio Ghomeshi mixes critical opinions, and high-profile interviews with subjects who have included Woody Allen, Jane Fonda, Francis Ford Coppola, Jane Goodall, Bob Geldof, Michael Moore, Radiohead and former Prime Minister Paul Martin. He also hosted The Great Canadian Music Dream, ZeD, Idols & Icons, Opening Night, and various television documentaries. Ghomeshi's television and radio credits include appearances on CBS Sunday Morning, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Showbiz Today, All Things Considered, The National, Monday Report, Morningside, Just For Laughs and the Juno Awards.
Music
Ghomeshi first came to attention in Canada and the United States as a singer, songwriter, and drummer in the folk-rock group, Moxy Früvous. Initially going by "Jean" Ghomeshi, he joined Mike Ford, Murray Foster, and Dave Matheson to form the band in 1990, recording seven albums through 2000. The band had a #1 single, " King of Spain", several top-40 songs including “Stuck in the 90s”, “Sad Girl”, and “I Will Hold On”; and toured internationally. After Früvous, Ghomeshi went on a solo tour with Erin McKeown and Andy Stochansky, known as 3 Song Circus, and released his first solo EP, The First 6 Songs, in July of 2001. He took this album on tour to Summerfolk, a festival in Owen Sound, Ont. On September 5, 2005, three of the four bandmates (Ford, Foster, and Ghomeshi) reunited to perform a "one night only" show on CIUT, the University of Toronto's campus radio station. Ghomeshi has also managed musician Martina Sorbara (now of the band Dragonette) and produced for Dar Williams through his production company, Wonderboy Entertainment. He currently manages a band named Lights, whom he described (to Toronto Life magazine) as "the Canadian Björk."
Writing
Ghomeshi's editorials and opinion pieces have been published in the Sunday Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and NOW. He is working on a satirical book about his experience as a first-generation person of Middle Eastern background living in North America. His writing often blends autobiography and social commentary:
- Culture: "I love coffee. Somewhere in my early twenties, I morphed from a casual user to one needing a daily morning fix. Now I sprinkle espresso beans on my granola" (Washington Post, August 2000).[1]
- Can Con: "Let's trade in some of our innocence for cold Yankee cash. Let's use American ignorance about us to make some real money" (The Globe and Mail, September 2000).[2]
- Culture: "MTV is dead.... It has bled to death through overexposure. And some of us couldn't be happier about it" (The Globe and Mail, July 2001).[3]
- Activism: "I am an antiwar Canadian musician of Iranian background with a big mouth, bracing myself to match his stature with my convictions" (The Globe and Mail, November 2001).[4]
- Politics: "I feel a growing antipathy for ultra-left-wing naysayers in Canada -- those hipper-than-white-rice, NOW-reading, uber-lefty elite types who claim the NDP can no longer be a viable option for social change" (NOW, January 2003).[5]
- On his "Look": "I try to go for something timeless, yet edgy and hip. I like a well-cut suit but I'm not afraid to throw in something like a leather jacket, a T-shirt or buckled boots. That said, my friends are usually bugging me for spending so much time fussing over my hair." (Eye Weekly, April 2002)
- Cities "I love Vancouver with a heinous passion. I love its beaches, its grass, its lovingly depressed rainy days and of course its countless beautiful lovers, just walking the streets with nothing to live for but the music and the dancefloor." (HighLife, March 2006).[6]
Service
Ghomeshi has a long record of community activism. He sits on the Board of Governors for the Stratford Festival and the Radio Starmaker Fund, and was the President of the York Federation of Students and the co-chairperson of the Ontario Federation of Students.
Discography
- the first 6 songs... (2001)
- the 'c' album (2000)
- Thornhill (1999)
- Live Noise (1998)
- You Will Go To The Moon (1997)
- the 'b' album (1996)
- Wood (1995)
- Bargainville (1993)
References
- ^ Toronto Star, 13/9/98. Retrieved 25 April 2007 at fruvous.com.
External links
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ghomeshi, Jian |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | musician, broadcaster, and writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 9, 1967 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
