Mohammad Reza Shajarian: The Passing of the Maestro
In the concert hall of Tehran’s National University, a sold-out audience waited for the musicians to take their place on the stage. Not only was every seat occupied, but there were throngs of young people around, lending the whole event the air of a rock concert. An outside observer might have been surprised, therefore, to learn this was not a rock concert at all, but one for traditional Persian music, played with antique-looking instruments.
But then, this was no ordinary time. It was December 1979, less than a year after the victory of the Islamic Revolution. In those heady days, Iranian arts and culture still had a mass following. Before long, it would be repressed to an unprecedented degree by the newly-founded Islamic Republic.