Jian Gomeshi
Toronto 43° 39' 12.53" N, 79° 23' 2.16" W Literature Media Arts Music Person
Jian Gomeshi is a Canadian broadcaster, writer, musician and producer of Iranian descent who was raised in Thornhill, Ontario. Now based in Toronto, he is the host of the national daily cultural affairs talk program, Q, on CBC Radio One and Bold TV. The show, which he co-created in 2007, now has the largest audience of any cultural affairs program in Canada and has gained the all-time highest audience share for a CBC program in its morning time slot.
Ghomeshi has interviewed an array of prominent international figures from prime ministers to sports stars and cultural icons. His feature interview subjects have included Woody Allen, MGMT, Van Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens, Jane Fonda, Abbas Milani, The Killers, Dirty Projectors, Radiohead, Barbara Walters, Los Campesinos!, Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, Tom Waits, Neil Young, Apache Indian, William Shatner, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush, Phyllis Diller and Leonard Cohen.
Ghomeshi has hosted a number of television documentaries, including The End, Screw the Vote and the forthcoming Philanthropy Inc. and spent three years as the host of the Gemini Award-winning CBC Television program, Play. He has appeared as a contributor or guest on programs ranging from CNN Today and The National to Late Night with Conan O'Brien (as a drummer for Moxy Früvous).
He is also a writer whose editorials and opinion pieces have been published in The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, and The International Herald Tribune. For a period in 2008 he was a weekly columnist for The National Post.
Part of his radio interview with Leonard Cohen appeared in The Guardian As a singer, songwriter and musician, Ghomeshi was a member of the multi-platinum (over 160,000 units sold) selling Canadian folk-rock group, Moxy Früvous. The band toured internationally during the 1990s and shared stages with a variety of artists including Bob Dylan, Ani Difranco and Elvis Costello. He continues to write and produce music through his company, Wonderboy Entertainment, and has been managing the career of young musician Lights since 2001.