TEHRAN – An Iranian cultural festival will open with a concert by the National Orchestra on Monday at the Lebanese Association of Arts in Beirut.

Heading a cultural delegation, Iran’s Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Mohammad-Mehdi Esmaeili, will attend the performance, the ministry announced in a press release published on Thursday.

The culture ministry will organize the weeklong festival, named “Alfajr Cultural Days”, in collaboration with the association, a Hezbollah-run center that is also known as Rissalat, the ministry.

A number of Lebanese musicians will also join the orchestra to perform a repertoire of Arabic songs.

Exhibitions of artworks, including paintings, photographs and cartoons, and handicrafts will also be held.

Groups of artists in different media will also participate in the festival to hold workshops and performances at several cultural centers across Beirut. 

The festival will also screen several Iranian films, including director Mohammad-Hossein Mahdavian’s political thriller “Trace of Blood”.

Groups of Iranian literati and Lebanese cultural figures have also been invited to hold poetry nights and literary sessions during the festival.

Esmaeili is scheduled to hold meetings with his Lebanese counterpart, Abbas Mortada, to discuss the expansion of cultural relations between the two countries.

There has been a close cultural relationship between Iran and Lebanon.

Hussein al-Ajami, an advisor at the Lebanese Ministry of Culture, visited Iran during September 2020 to attend a ceremony Iran organized for the release of the music video “Restless for Balqis” at Tehran’s Rudaki Hall.

The music video was recorded by Iran’s National Orchestra in sympathy with Lebanon on the disastrous blast in Beirut on 4 August 2020.

The National Orchestra under the baton of Lebanese maestro Andre AlHaj along with prominent vocalist Hamidreza Nurbakhsh performed the piece composed by Fardin Khalatbari with lyrics from Ahura Iman.

“There has been a close relationship between Iran and Lebanon, and this helps implement this cultural project,” Rudaki Foundation Managing Director Mehdi Afzali said during the ceremony.    

In a short speech, Al-Ajami praised the collaboration between Iranian and Lebanese musicians in the project “Restless for Balqis” and noted, “We shout out that Beirut neither burns nor sinks; Beirut stands and conveys the message of peace and friendship to the entire world.”

Photo: A poster for the Iranian festival “Alfajr Cultural Days”.

MMS/YAW