Western classical music has a rich repertoire of choral music. There are a number of choirs that have enthralled and spiritually uplifted millions of people over the centuries with their performances. In the US these include the Grammy Award-winning Phoenix Chorale of Phoenix, Arizona, The Ember Arts ensemble which performs in New York and New Jersey and The Mormon Tabernacle Choir (now known as the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square) of Salt Lake City, Utah. Some famous UK-based choirs are The London City Voices, The East Riding County Choir and The Trinity Boys Choir. There are many other fine choirs in cities all over the world.
The Fravahar Choir of Tehran, Iran
Most choirs world-wide are associated with Christian communities and their music repertoire is largely (not exclusively) based on Christian culture. But choirs are not a Christian phenomenon alone. There have been (and may be still are) Zarthoshti choirs too. A Dadar Parsi Colony Choir held a concert for the senior citizens of Dadar, Wadala and Matunga on December 16, 2017.
In Tehran, there was a Zoroastrian youth choir called The Fravahar Choir. It was founded in 2009 for creating sacred Zoroastrian music by Dadbeh Owrangi with Faramarz Rashidi as its first conductor and artistic director. The choir performed in national and international festivals and presented several successful concerts. Iran’s Fravahar Choir was the first Zoroastrian choir to perform in the Fair International Music Festival.
The Cambridge Companion to Choral Music mentions: "The earliest forms of choral music in the region (East and Central Asia) go back to Zoroastrianism, the oldest of the revealed religions, which emerged in Iran and later spread out to the subcontinent, including territories of the present-day Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Zoroastrianism considered music a sacred channel, a means of communication between human beings and the divine. Combined with the idea of collectivism essential for this faith, the belief was responsible for the important role of choral singing in Zoroastrian rituals.”
Choirs are a great way to bring a community together. There is joy in belonging to a choir and joy in being in the audience. It is a pity that we Zarthoshtis have not been more active in setting up choirs and creating a repertoire of choral music based on our culture. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a Bombay Zarthoshti Choir, or a Metropolitan Washington Zarthoshti Choir, or a London Zarthoshti Choir?
We need to start a repertoire of Zarthoshti choral music, written in the western musical tradition, with three-part harmony and Zarthoshti culture relevant lyrics. A beginning has been made with the hymn Dadar Hormazd, a solo rendition of which by Mani Rao, accompanied on the piano, is available on zoroastrians.net. (In the search box on that page, upper right, type Dadar Hormazd. You will be taken to a page titled Amazing Grace of Ahura Mazda. Scroll down on the page and listen to the audio.) The next step would be to train a choir to sing it in classical choral style.
There may be other choral compositions of which I am not aware, but we need a sizeable repertoire of Zarthoshti choral music to sustain choirs on a regular basis.
It is encouraging that the required musical talent exists within the Zarthoshti community worldwide to create such a repertoire and to train Zarthoshti choirs. With the widespread popularity of Western classical music within the community, enthusiastic audiences for Zarthoshti choral performances at public and private functions should be no problem. Such music may even become popular among music lovers in general, regardless of religious affiliation, in the manner of Christian choral music.
I urge readers who endorse this idea, particularly Western music professionals and lay persons trained in Western music, to contact me and help carry this idea forward.