An album titled ’Rumi Symphony’ composed by Hafez Nazeri and sung by his father Shahram Nazeri has been nominated for the Grammy Award.
The album, which commemorates Molana Jalaleddin Rumi, well-known Iranian mystic and poet, will be presented by Shahram Nazeri and his four-members band in a new style using Molana’s poems, reported Iran Daily’s Culture & Art Desk.
The symphony, which is jointly performed by Shahram Nazeri and his son, will be an entry in the world’s best traditional music album section of the award. It has been performed several times in European countries to mark the eighth birth centenary of the poet.
An Iranian master vocalist, Nazeri has collaborated with prominent Iranian traditional composers including Javad Alizadeh and Jalal Zolfonoun and has numerous successful albums to his credit.
Nazeri has released over forty recordings to date, His ’Gol’eh Sad Barg’ held the record for as the best selling album of Persian classical music and Sufi music.
The New York Times has described him the ’Persian Nightingale’ while the Christian Science Monitor called him ’Iran’s Pavarotti’. On September 28, 2007 he was awarded with ’Chevalier des Artset Lettres’ medal from the government of France for his lifetime achievements in Iranian traditional music. Also Asiatic Society presented Lifetime Cultural Heritage Award to him.
He has performed in major venues worldwide, including The Festival of Aix-en-Provence, The festival of Avignon, The‰tre de la Ville in Paris, The Tokyo Summer Festival and the Royal Albert Hall among others.
The Grammy Awards (originally called the Gramophone Awards) are presented annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States for outstanding achievements in the record industry. The award is one of the four annual music prizes in the US.
A total of 11,000 artists have so far submitted their works to the next edition of the event.

A seminar to review books by contemporary Zoroastrian, Jewish, Assyrian and Armenian authors will be held on November 21--the penultimate day of the 15th round of National Book Week which began on Thursday.
According to MNA, given the designation of the current Iranian year to March 2008 as ’The Year of National Unity and Islamic Solidarity’ by the Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, a section devoted to the works of non-Muslim writers will be organized for the first time by the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry’s Cultural Department.
At the gathering, intellectuals from religious minorities will review ways of tackling the challenges facing the book sector.
Meanwhile, book fairs will be organized in 26 universities across the country by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology in cooperation with Amir Kabir, Scientific and Cultural and University Press publishing houses and the Institute of Studies on Islamic Art.
More than 3,000 titles of recently-published university books are currently on display in 26 universities and the exhibit will continue until November 22.
Information about the latest publications and easier access of students to university textbooks and upgrading the knowledge of students in various fields are among the objectives of the books fairs.
Universities hosting the exhibits include Marine Sciences and Techniques, Kurdestan, Isfahan, Mazandaran, Mashhad’s Ferdowsi, International Imam Khomeini of Sistan-Baluchestan, Tabriz Teacher-Training, Hamedan’s Abu Ali Sina (Avicenna), Shiraz Industrial, Hormuzgan, Kashan, Isfahan Art and Tehran’s Sharif Industrial universities.
The books on display will be available at a 25 percent discount.

Opening ceremony of the Razavi Theater Festival

Fifth Nationwide Razavi Theater Festival concluded in a ceremony in Bojnourd, North Khorasan, on Thursday after naming the selected works of the event.
According to www.theater.ir, in the music section, the award for the best theater music went to the play ’Imam Reza (AS) Pilgrims House’ directed by Abdollah Atashani. The award included a statuette of the festival, a diploma of honor and five million rials in cash.
The best stage designing award went to Maryam Nik-Ravesh who was presented a statuette of the festival, diploma of honor and five million rials in cash.
The play ’Qarib Complaint Letter’ by Hassan Abedi was also appreciated in the stage designing section.
Ahmad Allameh-Dahr was awarded as the best actor for his role in the play ’Fatherly’ while the second prize went to Rasoul Vahdat, for his performance in ’Qolabad’ and Reza Ramazani in ’Fatherly’.
In the actress section, the first award went to Marjan Qamari for her role in ’Fatherly’ and second prize was awarded to Esmat Rezapour for her role in ’Jasaliq’ and Narges Golkar for her role in the play ’Sigh and Month’.
Hamid Ebrahimi was awarded the first prize in the director’s section for the play ’Sun and Night’.
In the playwright section, Arash Abbasi was awarded ’Fatherly’ while Sirous Hemmati and Hamid Ebrahimi came second and third respectively for writing the scripts for ’Jasaliq’ and ’Sun and Night’.

Two Iranian caricaturists won the first and third prizes at the Seventh International Contest of Pictorial and Flash Humor, themed ’New Technologies’ in Spain.
According to ISNA, Gholamreza Abbasnejad and Masoud Ziaei-Zardkhashouei received cash prizes of 1,200 and 600 euros, respectively in the festival’s animated category.
The second prize of 800 euros went to Shazkhenik Dimitro from Ukraine.
The caricatures focused on new technologies which have a considerable impact on day-to-day life, including Internet, telecommunications and medicine.

Rich Persian language conveyed the culture of Shiism to the Indian subcontinent, observed a noted Pakistani scholar.
Speaking to IRNA during ’Shrine Dove Short Story Festival’ in Semnan, Shahed Chaudary added that most rulers who reigned in the region were also influenced by this culture.
In his lecture titled ’Influence of Shiite Culture in Indian Subcontinent’, he pointed out that the 12-Imam Shiism was brought to northern Pakistan and southern India in the eighth century.
Migration of great Iranian mystics is one of the most important reasons for the development of mystic and spiritual culture in the subcontinent.
Devotion to the infallible household of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in this region is evident from the mourning ceremonies held annually during the lunar month of Moharram to mark the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (AS), the third Shiite Imam who was martyred in the plains of Karbala in present-day Iraq.
Chaudary was born in Lahore and graduated from Tehran University with a doctorate in Persian language.
He has translated ’Qur’an in Islam’ and ’Shiite in Islam’ both written by Allameh Mohammad Hossein Tabatabaei, a noted Iranian Shiite scholar, into Urdu.
Shrine’s Dove Festival concluded on Friday after naming the best among 425 works by 358 writers.

Over 800 films about the Persian Gulf have been listed according to a directive of Farabi Cinematic Foundation.
Mohsen Shams, advisor to the foundation’s managing director, told IRNA that the undertaking was part of a comprehensive research on more than 17,000 films.
He said the list includes 121 feature films, 38 short films, 591 documentaries and reports, 60 TV documentaries on social, political and economic issues. The most important films are about developments in Iran after World War II, Sacred Defense Era (1980-88 Iraq-imposed war), nationalization of oil industry and events in Iraq, he added.
“The films were produced during the last 80 years from 1927 to the present. One of the oldest works titled ’Iran’s Railroad’ was produced in 1930,“ he said.
He said that ’Lor Girl’ was the first Iranian sound film produced by Ardeshir Irani and Abdolhossein Sepanta in 1932. Another film ’Abadan Refinery’ was produced in 1943, he recalled.
Shams noted that the research shows that distinguished documentary makers and directors of Iranian cinema, including Martyr Morteza Avini, Akbar Alami, Nasser Taqvaei, Kianoush Ayyari and Ebrahim Hatamikia, have regularly mentioned the name of Persian Gulf in their works.
The main part of the research focused on the newsreel footages produced by foreign agencies between the 1940’s and 1970’s.

Maryam Zandi

A solo photography exhibition by Maryam Zandi is underway at Dey Gallery.
According to MNA, the artist displayed 43 photos at the event which was attended by noted artists, including Habibollah Sadeqi, Khosrow Sinaei, Farah Osouli and Hossein Khosrowjerdi.
The exhibition displayed nature and landscape photography, while most of the works focused on abstract photography.
Afshin Shahroudi, a photographer and editor-in-chief of Creative Photo magazine, who was also present at the event, said, “Zandi displays a rather different approach. Her works highlight abstract photography, which leaves more to the imagination and concentrates on the texture, form and color rather than the subject as a whole.“
Manager of the gallery, Ferial Salahshour, also said that the photos are being offered at reasonable price, which is less than nine million rials.
The exhibition, which runs until November 19, is open to the public every day from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and on Sundays and Tuesdays from 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.