Iran! more than a political stooge.

Meshkatian entered the Tehran Academy of Arts, where he studied music theory and was introduced to radif (the Persian classical music repertoire) by the masters Nour Ali Boroumand, Dariush Safvat, Mohammad Taghi Massoudieh, and Mehdi Barkeshli. He focused on the radif of Mirza Abdollah for santur and setar.

Meshkatian was one of the founding members of the Aref ensemble, founded in 1977, and the Sheyda ensemble. He was also one of the founding members of the Chavosh Artistic and Cultural Foundation. The Chavosh foundation has played a major role in the development of Iranian music for a few decades.

Meshkatian toured Europe and Asia and regularly performed in countries such as France, Germany, England, Sweden, Netherlands, and Denmark. In the spring of 1982 he published the book Twenty Pieces for Santour. In spring of 1992 Meshkatian and the Aref Ensemble won the first prize of the Spirit of the Earth Festival in England. Meshkatian's collaboration with Mohammad Reza Shajarian produced some of the most beautiful recordings of contemporary Persian traditional music. While continuing his work as a composer and a researcher, Meshkatian was teaching music at Tehran University.

Meshkatian died on September 21, 2009 of a heart attack

Many instruments around the world at least in part derive from the santur. Similar forms of the santur have been present in neighboring cultures like Iran, Armenia, Turkey, and Iraq for centuries. The Indian santoor is thicker, more rectangular, and can have more strings. Its corresponding mallets are also held differently. The Chinese yangqin may have originated from the Mesopotamian santur. The Roma people introduced a derivative of the santur called the cymbalum to Eastern Europe, which in turn likely led to the development of theclavichord and the piano. The Greek santouri is also derived from the santur, and in Nikos Kazantzakis' classic novel Zorba the GreekZorba plays the santouri.