TEHRAN -- The music and poetry office of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance plans to employ a new conductor for the Tehran Symphony Orchestra within the next two weeks, director general of the office Mohammad-Hossein Ahmadi said on Friday.

Several months ago, a supervisory council comprising Shahin Farhat, Hassan Riahi, Kambiz Roshanravan, Hushang Kamkar, and Mostafa-Kamal Purtorab was commissioned to manage the orchestra as well as other music groups. Subsequently, the conductor of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra, Nader Mashayekhi, threatened to resign if the council interfered in his job. Shortly after, the council announced that the orchestra would be led by a guest conductor. At the same time it said that a new permanent conductor would be found. “The council has no problem with Mr. Mashayekhi, but it seems that he has a problem with the council and prefers to manage all the orchestra’s performances and programs by himself,” Ahmadi told the Persian service of CHN. “The council was established simultaneously with my appointment to this position in order to raise the quality of performances of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra, Iran’s National Orchestra and traditional music groups and choruses. However it is only the Tehran Symphony orchestra that has difficulty with the council,” he added. Mashayekhi, who used to be based in Austria, was invited and assigned by Iranian cultural officials to conduct the Symphony Orchestra in 2005. Just a few months previously, his counterpart, Ali Rahbari, had quit because of financial problems and changes in the cultural policy. Austrian-based Iranian musician Rahbari, had been invited in 2004 to reorganize the orchestra, but he resigned in February 2005 and returned to Vienna