TEHRAN –The 39th edition of the Fajr Music Festival is scheduled to be held in Tehran and other provinces from February 12 to 17, 2024, the organizers have announced.

The festival has issued a call for entries for the competitive category in its forthcoming edition, soliciting submissions in various genres of vocal and instrumental music, including regional, classical western, fusion, pop, contemporary, Iranian orchestral, children, and young adults. The festival is also accepting entries for selected publisher, music books, thesis, and special prizes in categories such as ensemble performances (live), arranging, music videos, and single songs.

The call has been formulated with the aim of introducing and appreciating the works of Iran's music experts, promoting the art of music, elevating the taste and auditory culture of audiences, preserving the national identity based on Iranian and religious teachings, strengthening and supporting creative arts, particularly sound and music ideas and performances by young generations, and identifying and explaining the qualitative form and content for various music genres.

In a first for this edition, a composing prize has been included with the objective of introducing new musical ideas to Iran and promoting composition concepts in the aforementioned categories. Additionally, a single music prize has been introduced for the first time in this edition.

The festival will be divided into a competitive section (Barbad Award) and a non-competitive section. It will also incorporate the song award, music and media award, anthem section, as well as research sessions.

In the previous edition of the festival, about 90 performances were held at seven halls, including Vahdat and Rudaki in Tehran during the festival.

Bands from Portugal, Russia, Hungary, India, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Armenia and Serbia were also invited to perform. 

A dozen pop bands, five orchestras, 28 folk music groups, 14 traditional music ensembles and 11 anthem bands gave performances at the event.

A jury comprising Behzad Abdi, Majid Akhshabi, Hadi Azarm, Homayun Rahimian, Hushang Javid, Reza Mahdavi, Anton Tenetov and Olga Khomova selected the winners. 

SAB/