After maestro Ali Rahbari announced his formal resignation from conducting and managing the Tehran Symphony Orchestra, there were rumors about the fate of scheduled staging of the orchestra at the closing ceremony of Shanghai Spring International Music Festival.
As the Chinese officials of the festival insisted that the change of conductor should not affect the programs of the orchestra, executives at Roudaki Foundation decided to let Orchestra have a two part performance in China with one part conducted by maestro Farhad Fakhreddini and the second by maestro Nasir Heydarian.
Accordingly the first part’s repertory would include pieces from Persian symphonic genre and the second part would be focused on classic works.
Formerly the repertory was announced to include Russian composer Igor Stravinsky’s “Firebird” and French composer Hector Berlioz’s “Symphony Fantastique”, in addition to Hossein Alizadeh’s 1983 hit “Neynava” which the orchestra had successfully performed already at the opening of the 31st Fajr International Music Festival.
Iranian composer, conductor and founder of Iran’s National Orchestra, Farhad Fakhreddini was born on March 11, 1938 in East Azerbaijan’s capital city of Tabriz. He was awarded the Order of Merit, first degree, in arts and culture by the Iranian government in June 2005.
Founded in 1933, the Tehran Symphony Orchestra (TSO ) was originally founded as the Municipality Symphony Orchestra by Gholamhossein Minbashian, but it was remodernized by Parviz Mahmoud in 1946 and since then has been under the baton of famous conductors such as Rubik (Ruben) Gregorian, Morteza Hannaneh, Haymo Taeuber, Heshmat Sanjari, Farhad Meshkat and a host of other renowned Iranian maestros.
The TSO will leave Tehran for Shanghai on Monday to have a practice on Tuesday before the final performance at Shanghai Spring International Music Festival on Wednesday. The Iranian musical delegation of 65 players and two conductors are scheduled to flight back to Tehran on Thursday.
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