“A high-profile performance in Iran by the Tehran Symphony Orchestra was cancelled at the last minute because it was due to feature female musicians,” reads an unsigned Agence France-Presse report from Tehran on Sunday (11/29). Conductor Ali Rahbari “said he was told 15 minutes before the orchestra was scheduled to play at a major sporting event [the World Wrestling Clubs Cup competition] that they could not perform…. ‘Before performing the national anthem, all of a sudden they announced women cannot play on stage,’ [said Rahbari]. Neither Rahbari nor the ISNA news agency, which reported his comments, detailed who ‘they’ were.… Banned from singing solo in public since the Islamic revolution of 1979, female Iranian musicians have repeatedly complained of having been stopped from performing, particularly outside Tehran. But Thursday’s refusal, according to ISNA, was the first time a performance by the Symphony Orchestra, one of Iran’s oldest, had been cancelled because of its female members…. The issue of music in public has resurfaced in the past year with artists repeatedly complaining they have been stopped from performing at short notice despite having official authorization…. Recent concert cancellations have been viewed by some Iranians as a tactic used by the country’s ultraconservative establishment.”
Posted November 30, 2015
