A high-profile performance in Iran by the Tehran Symphony Orchestra was cancelled at the last minute because it was due to feature female musicians, its conductor Ali Rahbari said on Sunday.
Rahbari said he was told 15 minutes before the orchestra was scheduled to play at a major sporting event that they could not.
“The chairs were laid out and everything looked fine,” he said, referring to the World Wrestling Clubs Cup competition which opened in the Iranian capital on Thursday. “But before performing the national anthem, all of a sudden they announced women cannot play on stage.”
“It’s absolutely impossible for women to play musical instruments on stage,” Rahbari quoted organizers of the ceremony as saying.
Banned from singing solo in public since the Islamic revolution of 1979, female Iranian musicians have repeatedly complained of having been stopped from performing.
(AFP, November 29, 2015)
