Iran’s Hapless Musical Diplomacy (If That’s The Right Word)

The Tehran Symphony Orchestra has just completed a five-city tour of Western Europe featuring Majid Entezami’s Peace and Friendship Symphony, which Michael Kimmelman describes as “a four-movement jeremiad of martial bombast and almost unfathomable incompetence and silliness.” The audiences were embarrassingly small; almost the only people to show up willingly were protesters.