TEHRAN – Vocalist Shahram Nazeri plans to record three music videos to promote tamboura, a string instrument native to Kermanshah that is the homeland of the world-renowned artist.

About 600 tamboura players from the western Iranian city will perform with Nazeri in the videos, which will be recorded in the Bistun ancient site, the Kermanshah Music Society announced in a press release on Monday.

“The music video project aims to promote tamboura, which was first made and performed in the Kermanshah region,” the director of the society, Farzad Shahsavari, said.

“The group is doing its final rehearsals for the videos, which will be recorded during March in case of good weather conditions, otherwise the project will be carried out in April,” he added.

Shahsavari announced Turkey’s plan to register the art of tamboura craftsmanship and playing the instrument on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

“The collaboration of nearly 600 tamboura players in the project can be a key document to prevent Turkey from inscribing the instrument on the list for the country,” he noted.

In September 2016, the UNESCO Cluster Office in Tehran honored Nazeri during a special ceremony in Tehran for his musical project in which he highlighted several cultural heritage sites in the central Iranian city of Isfahan.

A singer of dozens of memorable songs, Nazeri received the Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur medal, one of the most coveted trophies in the world of art and culture, from the French government in 2007.    

Photo: Tamboura players of the Mastur ensemble perform in an undated photo. (file photo/IRNA/Bahman Zarei)

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