February 2014 | BIPS Travel Grant

Jane Lewisohn
Music Department, SOAS

Thanks to a generous travel grant from BIPS, and the invitation of the Museum of Music in Tehran, I was able to travel to Iran in August. The purpose of my trip to Iran was to collect archives of early 78 shellac recordings, 45-rpm recordings and Persian journals and printed material related to the 19th and early 20th century Performance Arts in Iran. I also wanted to consult with the Museum of Music in Tehran to familiarize myself with the extent and contents
of their collections. I was successful in meeting with staff at the Museum of Music, where I was able to compare notes with them both regarding their archives and holdings, and my own private collections that I had been given, and in this manner, and so confirm the presence or absence of gaps in our archives.
I spent most of the 10 days in Tehran and its suburbs, where I was able to collect significant collections of audio and visual files relating to the early 20th century Performance Arts, including a significant amount of 78 shellac, and 45-rpm recordings as well as journals and printed matter relating to 20th-century performing arts. However, I took one short visit to Isfahan to collect an archive of early and mid 20th-century songs and taranas, where I was also
introduced to Reza Tabataba’i, one of the main students of the great iconic vocalist of the Isfahani musical style: Taj Isfahani. I conducted a long interview with him on the origins of the Isfahani musical style and its main proponents, who (such as Taj Isfahani, Jalil Shanaz, Adib Khwansari, and Hasan Kasa’i) were his close friends and colleagues. I hope in the not too distant future to be able to make all of this material available to the public. While I was in Tehran I was also able to begin research on the history of Lalehzar Street and district. Lalehzar was one of the most iconic streets and districts in Tehran, which in its glory days was the avenue for the introduction of all things modern and in its decline, became the centre for song and dance cabarets, film-Farsi cinemas and burlesque theaters. Concerning Lalehzar, I was able to interview a number of reputable scholars, such as Sayyid Mohammad
Beheshti Shirazi, who is currently head of the archival committee of city planning for the Cultural Arts Centre, and Director of the College for the history of architecture and city planning in Tehran. I also interviewed Dr. Sayyid Ahmad Mohit-Tabataba’i, who is a specialist in the cultural affairs and head of the international committee for the National Museums, and Assistant Director of the College for the History of Architecture and City Planning. I met with Nasru’llah Haddadi, a scholar who specializes on the history of Tehran and was a producer of programs on the history of Tehran for the Iranian radio and television. On the subject of Lalehzar, I also interviewed Amir Shahab Rezvani, and Mehrdad Zahediyan, two filmmakers who have worked
extensively on subjects relating Iranian historical subjects, and Tehran in particular.
I was also interviewed by two reporters from the Ittela‘at newspaper about my work on the Golha Project website. An article about my work appeared in print in Tehran on 11 Shahrivar 1393 – 02/09/14 (no. 35960 http://www.ettelaat.com/etiran/?p=68506) in the Arts and Literature section (Adab va honar) of Ittela‘at. At the Ittela‘at newspaper, I was the guest of Mr. Du‘a’i, the general director of the Ittela‘at Newspaper Cooperation, who generously donated the
entire collection of all the Ittela‘at newspapers on CDs to the Golha Project (totaling 24 kilos!) going back to 1924.