Singer and songwriter Mohammad-Réza Shajarian, a monument of traditional and classical Iranian music, died Thursday at the age of 80, his son Homayoun Shajarian announced on Instagram.
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Very soon after the announcement of the death of the "Ostad" (the Master in Persian), several hundred admirers converged on the Jam hospital in Tehran where he had been admitted a few days ago in critical condition. , according to AFP journalists on the spot.
Suffered from cancer for several years, Mohammad-Réza Shajarian "flew to meet his beloved (God)", writes his son under a black page.
In a statement, the hospital said he died "despite the efforts of the medical team" and that his body had been transferred for burial.
State television, on which the singer had been banned from air for several years, opened its 6 p.m. newspaper with the announcement of the musician's death, taken up by all the press and eliciting countless saddened comments on the networks social.
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According to several Iranian media, the funeral should take place in Mashhad, a Shiite holy city in northeastern Iran where the singer was from.
Singer, instrumentalist and committed composer, Mohammad-Réza Shajarian has embodied more than any other Iranian traditional and classical music for half a century both abroad and in Iran.
A true national monument in his country, he nevertheless maintained difficult relations with the authorities in Tehran throughout his long career, first under the reign of the Shah then with the Islamic Republic.
In 2009, in the midst of the crackdown on the Green Movement's protest against the re-election of ultraconservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he resolutely sided with the protesters against power.
Mohammad-Réza Shajarian at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris