TEHRAN-The 40th International Fajr Music Festival will kick off in Tehran on Tuesday afternoon, with six international musicians and bands performing during the week-long event.

Musicians and bands from Turkey, Spain, India, the Netherlands, Tunisia, and Armenia are set to attend the festival. Tehran’s Vahdat Hall will host all the international performances, IRNA reported.

Cellist Jamal Aliyev and pianist Ece Dağıstan from Turkey will perform on February 12 and the performance of Spanish flamenco guitarists Daniel Casares and Antonio Maldonado is planned for the same day.

Pavan Shrikant Naik, Ram Deshpande, Vivek Samuel, and Amano Manish are musical artists from India who will perform on February 13 and 14. 

Afro Anatolian Tales from the Netherlands and Nushe Band from Iran will give a performance on February 15.

Sjahin During and Bram Stadshouders from the Netherlands and Bence Huszar from Hungary are members of the Afro Anatolian Tales.

The Iranian musicians in the Nushe Band include Niusha Barimani, Rokhsareh Rostami, Niloofar Ebrahimi, Donya Fathi, Azin Malekzadeh, and Setareh Hatef.

Another performance is also slated for February 15 when Vahdat Hall will host Levon Tevanyan from Armenia.

The last international performance will be delivered by Farah Fersi from Tunisia on February 16, when she will play kanun, a Middle Eastern string instrument played in much of Iran, Arab East, and Arab Maghreb region of North Africa.

The 40th International Fajr Music Festival is organized by the Deputy of Artistic Affairs of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, in collaboration with the Music Office of the Culture Ministry, the Iran Music Association, and the Rudaki Foundation. 
It aims to showcase and honor the best works of Iranian musicians, promote the art of music, enhance the audience’s taste and listening culture, preserve national identity rooted in religious and Iranian teachings, support creative art—especially ideas and performances by the younger generation—and identify and strengthen the quality of form and content in various genres of music.

In addition to the international participants, this year, 100 Iranian bands comprising over 1,400 musicians will perform at the festival.

The festival will be held in two competitive and non-competitive sections from February 11 to 17 in Tehran.

Photo: Farah Fersi from Tunisia plays kanun in an undated photo.

SS/SAB