TEHRAN -- The sixth edition of the Mugham Music Festival has opened in Tabriz, bringing musicians and singers from across Iran together for a four-day program devoted to one of the most distinctive musical traditions of the country’s Azerbaijani cultural sphere.
The festival’s main competitive program runs Sept. 27–29 at the Shahriar International Convention Center in Tabriz, with the closing ceremony scheduled for Sept. 30. Organizers say the event received 374 entries across its instrumental and vocal sections, with performers competing in three age categories.
Mugham occupies an important place in the musical culture of Iranian Azerbaijan, particularly in and around Tabriz. Combining instrumental performance with singing, the tradition is characterized by modal structures, melodic development and improvisational practices, with musicians drawing on established forms while allowing room for individual interpretation.
For the Tabriz festival, that relationship between inherited repertoire and contemporary performance is central. 
The competition includes specialists in individual instrumental disciplines, with separate judges assigned to areas including percussion, tar, kamancheh and garmon, as well as to vocal performance.
specialist judging structure 
as one of the festival’s distinguishing features.
Participants this year come from 10 Iranian provinces, including East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Tehran, Alborz, Ardabil, Zanjan, Hamadan, Fars, Golestan and Razavi Khorasan. 
The geographical spread reflects the festival’s effort to position mugham not simply as a local tradition but as part of Iran’s broader musical landscape.
The festival is organized with the support of the Cultural, Social and Sports Organization of Tabriz Municipality, in cooperation with cultural and musical institutions in the province. 
Its organizers have identified the discovery and development of younger performers as a principal objective, while seeking to create a meeting point between established musicians and emerging artists.
This year’s edition also carries a commemorative dimension. Organizers have dedicated the festival to those martyred in recent wars on Iran, including student and teacher victims from East Azerbaijan, linking the event to the reopening of schools and the beginning of the Iranian academic year. 
The festival’s stated theme frames music as a means of remembering sacrifice and expressing resilience.
The official slogan, “Tabriz, Naghmeh-Sarā-ye Iran”, translates approximately as “Tabriz, the melody-maker of Iran.” The phrase places the city at the center of the festival’s cultural narrative while emphasizing its organizers’ broader ambition for the event.
Gholamreza Mirzazadeh, the festival’s executive secretary, said the number and quality of submissions had increased compared with previous editions. 
He also pointed to the participation of artists from outside East Azerbaijan as evidence of the wider interest in mugham and in Tabriz as a center for its performance.
The organizers are already looking beyond the sixth edition, expressing an ambition to develop the festival into an international event in future years.