Tehran Symphony Orchestra

Tehran Symphony Orchestra
Tehran Symphony Orchestra
	Tehran Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Shahrdad Rohani in Roudaki Hall
Native name	ارکستر سمفونیک تهران
Short name	TSO
Former name	Municipality Symphony Orchestra
Founded	1933
Principal conductor	Manouchehr Sahbai

The Tehran Symphony Orchestra (TSO, Persian: ارکستر سمفونیک تهران), founded in 1933, is Iran's oldest and largest symphony orchestra. It was founded as the Municipality Symphony Orchestra by Gholamhossein Minbashian, before entering its modern form under Parviz Mahmoud in 1946. In the years that followed, conductors such as Rubik (Ruben) Gregorian, Morteza Hannaneh, Haymo Taeuber, Heshmat Sanjari, and Farhad Meshkat took over as the conductors of the orchestra.^[1]

After the 1979 Revolution, many musicians of the TSO emigrated to Europe and the US. For some years Heshmat Sanjari and then Fereydoun Nasseri were the conductors. The current conductor of TSO is Manouchehr Sahbai.

1933–1979

Yehudi Menuhin plays with Tehran Symphony Orchestra with Heshmat Sanjari as the conductor 1967

In the golden age of the orchestra, many notable musicians like Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern played with the orchestra.^[2]

1979–present

After the 1979 Iranian revolution, clerics outlawed all pre-revolutionary music, hardline clerics say music comes between the faithful and God, and leads to an impure mind.^[3] As a result, the orchestra faced its darkest age, playing only a few concerts in the decade following the revolution. The pressure caused the conductor Heshmat Sanjari a serious sickness, he died in 1995.^[4]

The orchestra still plays concerts once in a while.