According to a report by ILNA, Ahmad Mehrchian, took his family on a march that began 35 days ago, to protest the cancellation of concerts in Khorasan Razavi province.

 This 60-day march is not just a family protest, but also a choice to support their national and folklore music. Their motto is, “We have the right to hear the songs of our motherland in our city.”

 Mehrchian said, “In order to show support for the music of our districts and our country’s Maghami music, we started the march 35 days ago. We have been traveling on foot, and we will meet with music experts from different regions of our country.” He added, “This march is performed on foot using a backpacker. In this type of travel, people put their needed stuff in a backpack and travel on foot; sometimes they ride a truck or trailer, but they never use buses, minivans and cars.”

 Mehrchian went on to say, “We are now in Kordestan Province in Western Iran and right now we are heading towards Sanandaj city. I and my wife, Zohreh Barati who is a physician, along with our 4-year-old son, Sirous, and our six-year-old daughter, Baran, are backpacking. We love listening to local and Maghami music, as well as the motherland songs of our city and our country. We are also against the cancellation of concerts that take place especially in our city (Mashhad). We started our march after the cancellation of Shahram Nazeri’s (Iranian traditional music singer) concert in Quchan. By October, we are also trying to travel to different cities of Iran and send our message to the experts and other people of the country.”

 “We travelled from Mashhad to Khaf, Taibad, Torbat-e-Jam and Nishapur during this trip. Then we came to Tehran and met with Shahram Nazeri and his son. Then we travelled to Qom, Kashan, Isfahan, Qazvin, Zanjan and Oroumiyeh. We met with Professor Dehghan in Orumiyeh,” he continued, saying as well, “After that we went to Tabriz to visit Professor Gharabaghi. We also met with Alireza Qorbani (famous Iranian singer) in Tabriz and Salar Aqili (another renowned singer) in Isfahan.”

 Mehrchian pointed out, “In Kordestan, we are planning to meet with music masters because as you know, Iran’s Kordestan is a cradle of music, and we are moving to Sanandaj to meet with Kurdish music professors.”

 He said that they will go on towards Hamadan in the west. “Of course, we still have not decided where to go after Hamadan. But as our daughter will go to school in early October, we try to finish our journey before the schools reopen.”

 This Mashhadi family began its journey in Imam Reza’s (AS) shrine. He says that although many of the people in Mashhad believe in religious rituals as well as in the musical culture of their country, as they do, their wishes are not respected, because the City’s officials won’t allow concerts to be held in the holy city.