BBC Symphony Orchestra Iran Week: Persepolis - Discovering the Music of Iran

The BBC Symphony Orchestra is one of the UK's leading orchestras. Founded by Adrian Boult in 1930 it has played a central role at the heart of British musical life for over 70 years and, as the flagship orchestra of the BBC is the backbone of the BBC Proms, making at least a dozen appearances each year.

The BBC SO has a strong commitment to 20th century and contemporary music and since its foundation has given the premieres of over 1000 works by composers such as Bartók, Britten, Hindemith, Holst, Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams.

Each year it continues to give the world premieres of BBC commissions by many of today's leading composers, including Sally Beamish, Elliott Carter, HK Gruber, Robin Holloway, Magnus Lindberg, James MacMillan, Anthony Payne, Kaija Saariaho, David Sawer and Mark-Anthony Turnage, who was the BBC SO's Associate Composer from 2000-2003. In addition to this, each season it introduces numerous new works to UK audiences for the first time.

Recent seasons have seen the BBC SO embark upon a series of critically acclaimed performances of opera in concert including Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Kaija Saariaho's L'amour de loin, Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, Barber's Vanessa and this season Sir Harrison Birtwistle's The Second Mrs Kong, described in The Guardian as 'a great, utterly memorable event'.

All concerts are broadcast on BBC Radio 3, giving the BBC Symphony Orchestra the highest broadcast profile of any UK orchestra. Central to the orchestra's life are studio recordings for BBC Radio 3, some of which are free for the public to attend. The BBC SO also records for several commercial labels both in the UK and abroad.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra performs at a number of national and international music festivals and undertakes regular major overseas tours, including a recent South American tour.

Community and outreach work involves the orchestra in a number of adventurous projects working with schools and members of the local community in the Maida Vale and Hammersmith and Fulham areas.

Recent projects have included a five-day festival of Gamelan music and culture in association with RFH Education and the South Bank Gamelan players, Berio Fusion in which secondary school pupils explored the possibilities for using technology in music-making, a BBC Proms Out and About concert at Hammersmith Town Hall, a project in South America and Mrs Kong's in the Building, a multi-media event which was part of the South Bank Centre's Harrison Birtwistle festival in November 2004, with the most recent project being the current one dealing with music from the Iranian world.

Founded in 1991, "the almighty Dastan is perhaps the most forward-thinking group of its kind, re-establishing a repertoire of Persian classical music while using its fundamentals of melodic, rhythmic and dynamic variation to develop new forms and combined sonorities. The ensemble's structured improvisations are performed by several of the very best of the contemporary Persian musicians…." (John Payne, LA Weekly).

The members of the ensemble are Hamid Motebassem on Tar and Setar, Hossein Behroozi-Nia on Barbat, Saeed Farajpoury on Kamancheh, Fariborz Kiani on Tombak and Arash Moradi on Daf.

They toured Europe and Canada with the famed Persian singer, Sima Bina in the early part of 2002 and in the latter part of the year they toured in Europe with the acclaimed Persian singer, Parisa. Earlier European tours with the well known Persian singer Shahram Nazeri and virtuoso Daf player Bijan Kamkar took place in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1998 and 2000. The ensemble's US tours with Shahram Nazeri and Bijan Kamkar were in 1991, 1992, 1995, 1997, 1999 and 2001. The ensemble performed in Iran during 1993 and 1999 with Shahram Nazeri and Iraj Bastami.

The Dastan Ensemble is known for its collaboration with the finest musicians in the Persian musical tradition. These musicians have included Kayhan Kalhor, Mohammad Ali Kiani Nejad and Morteza Ayan as the first wave of performers with Dastan, and Ardeshir Kamkar, Pashang Kamkar, Reza Ghasemi and Siyamak Nemat Nasser as guest artists over the years.

A Bunch of Foreigners is a recently formed London based group, with members who are bound together by two focal points of commonality. The love of music and their Iranian origin. Their music which is interspersed with traditional highlights, uses sound effects that remind us of Iranian miniature paintings while instruments create a playful & sometimes fearful space around them, because that's how it feels to them to live in London-zone 6.

The members of the group are Parham Bahadoran (guitar), Siavash Fakher (decks & sound effects), Arash Fayyazi (Tar), Amir Fouladi (composition & Barbat) and Ali Nourbaksh (Daf & Tombak).