The Orchestra was Active from 1985 to 1990 in Washington DC, USA.
TEXT FROM OLD PROGRAM NOTES ABOUT THE ORCHESTRA
THE ROUHOLLAH KHALEGHI ORCHESTRA (RKO)
The Rouhollah Khaleghi Orchestra is a not-for-profit organization whose purposes are to promote Persian traditional music, to strengthen all levels instruction and research in the teaching of Persian music, and to cooperate in appropriate ways with other cultural groups whose common goal is to preserve and promote the Persian cultural heritage. The organization takes its name from prominent Iranian musician who was one of the pioneers of contemporary music teaching, composing and conducting in that country.
The Rouhollah Khaleghi Orchestra has taken shape on the conviction that Persian and public-spirited culture is essential to our unity and our survival as one nation in the modern world. In an age in which cultural alienation has remained the tragic fact of our daily reality both inside and outside our country, it is our duty to show that a political regime cannot visit distortion or oblivion on the cultural heritage of a country which has been known throughout the ages for its dazzling diversity of cultural expression. Enrichment of Iranian music lies at the heart of this cultural and humanistic endeavor.
It has also been our belief that the survival of Persian culture does not merely depend upon our attempt to establish the dialogue between past and present. We must equally try to keep open the lines of contact with other cultures of the world. The people who maintain that the cultural inheritance of a country is alone valid and supreme are closing doors where they should be opened.
