Monday, January 30, 2023
  • English
  • Français
  • فارسی
  • عربى
PODCASTS
NCRI Women Committee
  • Home
  • News
    • Women’s News
    • Articles
    • Statements
  • Publications
    • Monthlies
    • Documents
    • Reference Library
  • About Us
    • Women’s Committee of Iran NCRI
    • Gender Equality
    • Women’s Platform
  • Maryam Rajavi
    • Biography
    • Maryam Rajavi Speeches
    • Ten Point Plan for Iran
    • Ten Point Plan for Women
  • Vanguards
    • Fallen for Freedom
    • Heroines in Chain
    • Women of Iranian Resistance
    • Famous Women
    • Women in History
  • Events
    • IWD Conferences
    • IWD Speeches
    • Activities
    • Solidarity
  • Videos
    • Events
    • International Solidarity
    • International Women’s Day
    • NCRI Women’s Committee Presentations
    • Other Activities in Iran
    • Violence Against Women in Iran
    • Women in Iran Protests, Uprising
  • Podcast
  • Donate
  • Contact us
No Result
View All Result
NCRI Women Committee
  • Home
  • News
    • Women’s News
    • Articles
    • Statements
  • Publications
    • Monthlies
    • Documents
    • Reference Library
  • About Us
    • Women’s Committee of Iran NCRI
    • Gender Equality
    • Women’s Platform
  • Maryam Rajavi
    • Biography
    • Maryam Rajavi Speeches
    • Ten Point Plan for Iran
    • Ten Point Plan for Women
  • Vanguards
    • Fallen for Freedom
    • Heroines in Chain
    • Women of Iranian Resistance
    • Famous Women
    • Women in History
  • Events
    • IWD Conferences
    • IWD Speeches
    • Activities
    • Solidarity
  • Videos
    • Events
    • International Solidarity
    • International Women’s Day
    • NCRI Women’s Committee Presentations
    • Other Activities in Iran
    • Violence Against Women in Iran
    • Women in Iran Protests, Uprising
  • Podcast
  • Donate
  • Contact us
No Result
View All Result
NCRI Women Committee
No Result
View All Result
Home Famous Women
Marzieh, Legendary Diva of Persian Traditional Music

Marzieh, Legendary Diva of Persian Traditional Music

October 12, 2022
in Famous Women
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Ashraf os-Sadat Marzieh (March 22, 1924 – October 13, 2010), known professionally as Marzieh, was a Tehran-born singer of Persian traditional music. Known as the great diva of Persian traditional song, her voice represented the 60-year sufferings of a nation and the strength of Iranian women against stoning and misogyny of the mullahs’ ruling Iran.

Her parents were fond of arts and her relatives included a number of sculptors, painters, miniaturists, and musicians. Her mother encouraged her to sing and supported her artistic activities throughout her life.

Marzieh said, “At a time when Iranian families rarely let their daughters study, my father albeit a clergy encouraged me to go to school and learn the sciences of the time. When I started singing, it was not normal for a woman to become a singer.

“In the meantime, it was not enough to have a good voice. A singer had to go to school and learn the classical theory of music. A large number of masters of music had to endorse her. One had to be knowledgeable about the theory of music. I spent long years studying the art under the supervision of the greatest masters of Persian music before I started singing.”

Marzieh began her career in the early 1940s and was for decades a ubiquitous presence on radio and in concert. Over the years she performed for many world leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II, Charles de Gaulle, and Richard Nixon.

Marzieh was famed for her vast repertory, said to span a thousand songs. She worked with some of the greatest 20th-century Persian songwriters and composers like Ali Tajvidi, Parviz Yahaghi, Homayoun Khorram, Rahim Moeini Kermanshahi, and Bijan Taraghi. Marzieh also sang with the Farabi Orchestra, conducted by Morteza Hannaneh, a pioneer of Persian polyphonic music during the 1960s and 1970s.

Her first major public performance was in 1942 when she played the principal role of Shirin at the Jame’e Barbud opera house in the Persian operetta Shirin and Farhad.

In 1979, after the Shah was overthrown, Iran became a theocracy led by Khomeini. The fundamentalist clerics who ran the country deemed the arts, including music, inimical to the new order. As an artist who was also a woman, Marzieh, doubly marginalized, was barred from performing. She retreated to her farm in the countryside and did not sing in public for a decade and a half.

During this period, Marzieh was told that she could appear before audiences of women only. She considered this stricture unacceptable and continued her silence, practicing in private where no one could hear her. “I sang for the birds, for the river, the trees, and the flowers,” she told The Washington Times in 1995, “but not the mullahs.”

She told the Daily Telegraph that in order to continue her vocal practice she used to walk by night from her home in the historic north-Tehran Niavaran foothills to her cabin in the mountains, where she would sing next to a roaring waterfall: “Nobody could hear me. I sang to the stars and the rocks.”

In 1994, while visiting Paris, Marzieh defected. She met Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

She was particularly impressed with the prominent role women played in the main NCRI organization member, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).

Seeing the MEK’s dedication to democracy and women rights encouraged her in the late 1990s to visit Iraq to meet thousands of MEK members — including 1000 women — living in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. There, she sang atop a tank, dressed in military garb, for thousands of freedom fighters of the National Liberation Army of Iran. She returned to France just before the war broke out in 2003.

Marzieh, who was 70 when she defected, also resumed performing in public in support of the Iranian Resistance, starting with a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1995. She later sang in Los Angeles and in several European cities. She gave her last major performance in Paris in 2006, at 82.

For years and until her passing, she was an art adviser to NCRI President-elect Mrs. Maryam Rajavi.

Interviewers often asked Marzieh, who had been largely apolitical as a young woman, what had moved her to join the resistance. Speaking to the newspaper The Scotsman in 1999, she replied by quoting Rumi, the revered 13th-century Persian poet: I am looking for that which cannot be found, for I am fed up with beasts and ogres, and I yearn for a human being.

France 3, a regional TV news and entertainment channel, has compared Marzieh’s rich, throaty mezzo-soprano to those of legendary songstresses Édith Piaf and Maria Callas.

On the other hand, the European press has also compared her to Vanessa Redgrave and Melina Mercouri for her willingness to put political and human-rights beliefs ahead of her career, even her own safety. The New York Times described her “the great diva of Persian traditional song,” and the “voice of dissent.”

Marzieh was not only a pioneering and legendary singer but an enlightened woman who broke cultural barriers and defied fundamentalist stereotypes to rise to prominence in the 1940s. Later in life, she fought for greater rights for Iranian women when she joined the Iranian Resistance.

Her works have for decades resonated with all Iranians, particularly women. Marzieh was the first woman singer to take part in Tehran’s most celebrated radio program of the time, The Colorful Flowers, and was regularly asked to perform with some of the masters of Persian music.

Yet she was not obsessed with personal fame or with accolades and honors, instead used her platform to inspire and promote values and traditions consistent with the indelible rights of all humanity.

Indeed, her reverence for Islam and disdain for religious bigots ruling Iran is best symbolized in a masterful recording of the Azan, the Muslim call to prayer featuring her voice. She is the only Iranian woman known to have successfully done so.

Marzieh died of cancer on October 13, 2010, in Paris but she will forever remain in the hearts and minds of the Iranian nation as an inspirational idol.

ShareTweetPinShare

Related Posts

Charges of Armita Abbasi examined in first court session

January 30, 2023
Charges of Armita Abbasi examined

The first court hearing on the charges of Armita Abbasi The court hearing examining the charges of Armita Abbasi was held on Sunday, January 29, 2023, at Branch...

Read more

Iranian skier Atefeh Ahmadi seeks asylum in Germany

January 29, 2023
Iranian skier Atefeh Ahmadi seeks asylum in Germany

Atefeh Ahmadi was one of Iran's best Atefeh Ahmadi, a member of Iran’s national ski team, has defected and sought asylum in Germany. Atefeh Ahmadi, the flag bearer...

Read more

Instead of hospital, Zohreh Sarv is taken to Qarchak prison

January 28, 2023
Instead of hospital, Zohreh Sarv is taken to Qarchak prison

Zohreh Sarv is taken to Qarchak prison instead of the hospital Political prisoner Zohreh Sarv was taken from Evin prison on January 24, 2023, to Qarchak Prison instead...

Read more

Maryam Derisi sentenced to 22 months in jail and 74 lashes

January 27, 2023
Maryam Derisi sentenced to 22 months in jail and 74 lashes

The Revision Court of Fars Province sentenced Maryam Derisi to 22 months and 17 days in jail and 74 lashes. Maryam Derisi, from Kazerun, is a master’s student...

Read more

Rights activist Kajal Vatanpour summoned to serve jail time

January 26, 2023
Rights activist Kajal Vatanpour summoned to serve jail time

Rights activist Kajal Vatanpour summoned to serve jail time Women and children's rights activist Kajal Vatanpour, who had been arrested and sentenced to prison during the nationwide protests...

Read more
Next Post
Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee is rearrested, taken to an unknown location

Day 28 of Iran protests in Tehran and dozens of other cities

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Documents

The list of women and girls killed by Iranian security forces during the 2022 uprising

The list of women and girls killed by Iranian security forces during the Iran uprising

November 25, 2022

The list of women and girls killed by Iranian security forces during the Iran uprising Women are leading a revolution...

Statement to support the Iranian women’s struggle for freedom and equality

Sign to support the Iranian women’s struggle for freedom and equality

October 10, 2022

The NCRI Women's Committee urges all human rights defenders, women's rights organizations and advocates to sign this statement to support...

executions of women - women executed in Iran

Iran regime, the world record holder in executions of women

October 10, 2022

List of executions of women in Iran since 2007 List of women executedDownload Iran regime is the world’s record holder...

Monthlies

Spreading false narratives to cover up crime
Monthlies

Monthly Report December 2022 – Spreading false narratives to cover up crime

January 4, 2023
violence
Monthlies

Monthly November 2022 – Systematic violence against women in Iran

December 5, 2022
Monthly October 2022 – Stop arrest and torture of Iranian women
Monthlies

Monthly October 2022 – Stop arrest and torture of Iranian women

November 6, 2022
Iran protests - Leading role of women's Resistance Units
Monthlies

Monthly September 2022 – Iran protests and the leading role of women’s Resistance Units

October 9, 2022

Articles

Charges of Armita Abbasi examined

Charges of Armita Abbasi examined in first court session

January 30, 2023

The first court hearing on the charges of Armita Abbasi The court hearing examining the charges of Armita Abbasi was...

Zeynab Molaei Rad, the mother of Kian Pirfalak, suspended from her job

Zeynab Molaei Rad, the mother of Kian Pirfalak, suspended from her job

January 25, 2023

Zeynab Molaei Rad suspended from her job Zeynab Molaei Rad has been banned from teaching until further notice. Zeynab Molaei...

Brave Iranian women lose their eyes, but their hearts still beat for Iran

Brave Iranian women lose their eyes, but their hearts still beat for Iran

January 17, 2023

Ghazal Ranjkesh: I still haven’t seen the day I “must” see; I know it’s close, very close Many inspiring moments...

The Fallen for Freedom

Fatemeh Amini_EN
The Fallen for Freedom

Fatemeh Amini, symbol of perseverance and steadfastness

August 15, 2022
Fariba Dashti
The Fallen for Freedom

Fariba Dashti

August 13, 2022
Dr. Massoumeh Karimian massacred in 1988
The Fallen for Freedom

Dr. Massoumeh Karimian (Shurangiz)

August 10, 2022
Nastaran Hedayat Firouzabadi
The Fallen for Freedom

Nastaran Hedayat Firouzabadi

July 26, 2022

ABOUT US

NCRI Women Committee

We work extensively with Iranian women outside the country and maintain a permanent contact with women inside Iran. The Women’s Committee is actively involved with many women’s rights organizations and NGO’s and the Iranian diaspora.
The committee is a major source of much of the information received from inside Iran with regards to women. Attending UN Human Rights Council meetings and other international or regional conferences on women’s issues and engaging in a relentless battle against the Iranian regime’s misogyny are part of the activities of members and associates of the committee.

CATEGORIES

  • Activities
  • Articles
  • Documents
  • Events
  • Famous Women
  • Heroines in Chain
  • International Solidarity
  • International Women's Day
  • IWD Conferences
  • IWD Speeches
  • Maryam Rajavi
  • Maryam Rajavi Speeches
  • Monthlies
  • NCRI Women's Committee Presentations
  • Other Activities in Iran
  • Podcast
  • Reference Library
  • Solidarity
  • Statements
  • The Fallen for Freedom
  • Uncategorized
  • Videos
  • Violence Against Women in Iran
  • Women in History
  • Women in Iran Protests, Uprising
  • Women of Iranian Resistance
  • Women's News

BROWSE BY TAG

Child marriage coronavirus education execution forced hijab Gender Gap Generation Equality Honor killings Iran Teachers Maryam Akbari Monfared Nurses Poverty Prisoners Protests rural women Saba Kord Afshari The girl child Violence against women Women's Leadership Women Heads of Household Zeinab Jalalian

The copyright of all the material published on this website has been registered under © 2016 the Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. To obtain permission to copy, redistribute or publish the material published on this website, you should write to the NCRI Women’s Committee. Please include the link of the original article on our website, women.ncr-iran.org.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Women’s News
    • Articles
    • Statements
  • Publications
    • Monthlies
    • Documents
    • Reference Library
  • About Us
    • The NCRI Women’s Committee
    • Gender Equality
    • Women’s Platform
  • Maryam Rajavi
    • Maryam Rajavi Speeches
    • Ten Point Plan for Iran
    • Ten Point Plan for Women
  • Vanguards
    • The Fallen for Freedom
    • Heroines in Chain
    • Women of Iranian Resistance
    • Famous Women
    • Women in History
  • Events
    • IWD Conferences
    • Activities
    • IWD Speeches
    • Solidarity
  • Videos
  • Podcast
  • Donate
  • Contact us
  • فارسی
  • عربی
  • Français

The copyright of all the material published on this website has been registered under © 2016 the Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. To obtain permission to copy, redistribute or publish the material published on this website, you should write to the NCRI Women’s Committee. Please include the link of the original article on our website, women.ncr-iran.org.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist