Tehran Times, Iran
Monday
Set, costume designer Edna Zeinalian to get lifetime achievement award
Photo: Set and costume designer Edna Zeinalian in an undated photo. (Honaroline/Gata Ziatabari)
TEHRAN – The Iranian-Armenian set and costume designer Edna Zeinalian will be honored for her lifetime achievements on Wednesday.
She will receive an award for her long brilliant career in theater during a special ceremony, which is scheduled to be organized at Tehran's Vahdat Hall by the Stage and Costume Designers Society of Iran.
She began studying in costume design at Tehran's Alzahra University in 1972 and started working as a stage and costume designer at the Rudaki Foundation in 1978.
She has worked in over 100 theaters during her career spanning over 40 years.
The Stage and Costume Designers Society of Iran also plans to unveil a prize named after Zeinalian during the ceremony. The prize will be presented to a top stage and costume designer every year.
She deems herself deeply indebted to her parents. "I was really lucky to have good teachers, the best of them was my mother," she once said in an interview published in 2016.
"I also learned from my father to accept my failures and to try a new beginning in good spirits," she added.
A string orchestra, which will be conducted by the renowned Iranian-Armenian maestro Loris Tjeknavorian, will perform a concert at the ceremony, which will be organized in collaboration with the Rad No-Andish Art and Cultural Institute.
"I called the concert 'A Dialogue between Two Brothers'," Tjeknavorian said in a press release published on Sunday by the institute.
"As a part of a large musical project, the concert is a special dialogue between the music of the East and West," he added and noted, "I am really hopeful that the project can succeed and we will expand the project if everything goes well."
Celebrated pianist Bardia Sadrenoori will accompany the orchestra during the performance.