Tehran Symphony Orchestra (TSO) launched its latest music season with a well-known piece by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky ‘Carmina Burana’ on October 6 and 7 and concluded with the Ashura Opera on October 22.
Ashura is commemorated by Shi’a Muslims as a day of mourning during the lunar month of Muharram, for the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (AS), the grandson of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in the Battle of Karbala. This year it was observed on October 24.
Performing brilliant concerts in the past two months, and reaching a professional climax in the mid-August joint symphony with the China Philharmonic Orchestra at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall, the TSO under Ali Rahbari, veteran conductor and music director, is undoubtedly a star in Iran’s music world, reports Honaronline.
After a three-year hiatus, the orchestra was revived with the collaboration of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and the Roudaki Cultural and Artistic Foundation.
Regarding his international credentials, Rahbari has worked with more than 120 European orchestras and top international soloists, including Alexander Israilevich Rudin, Russian classical cellist and conductor, and Slovakian violinist Dalibor Karvay.
Rahbari gave a new dimension to TSO repertoires, by drawing the orchestra’s attention to outstanding works by Russian Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, German Ludwig van Beethoven, Czech composer Antonin Leopold Dvorak and German Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.
In 2009, he introduced new musical ideas based on rhythms in Persian traditional music.
The orchestra’s recent performances co-conducted by Rahbari and guest orchestra conductors Behzad Abdi, music composer, and Nasir Heidarian at Vahdat Hall, sheds light on the vast young talent of musicians in the country.
Although many international pieces were added to the TSO’s performance list, Rahbari noted that “the group has always honored Iranian music composers, and more than half the pieces were by Iranian masters.”
The TSO is Iran’s largest symphony orchestra. It was originally founded in 1933 as the Municipality Symphony Orchestra by Gholamhossein Minbashian.
