The academic Authentic Persian Music (Musiq-i-Asil) is strongly based on the theories of sonic aesthetics as expounded by the likes of Farabi and Shirazi in the early centuries of Islam.
It also preserves melodic formula that are often attributed to the musicians of the Persian imperial court of Khosroe Parviz in the Sassanid Period.
Davood Azad, a renowned Iranian musician and vocalist, melded Johann Sebastian Bach's music style and Iranian classical music.
Iran's main orchestras include: National Orchestra, Tehran Symphony Orchestra and Melal Orchestra (Nations Orchestra).
The first serious pieces of Persian symphonic music have been composed by Aminollah Hossein, Parviz Mahmoud and then Houshang Ostovar, Samin Baghtcheban, Morteza Hannaneh, Hossein Nassehi, Hossein Dehlavi, Ahmad Pejman, etc.
We know that the Elamites and the Achaemenid Empire certainly made use of musicians but we do not know what that music was like.
Music of Iran (Persian:موسیقی در ایران) or Music of Persia, as evidenced by the archaeological records of the Fertile Crescent civilization of Elam, the most ancient culture in southwestern Iran, dates back thousands of years.
There is a distinction between the science of Music, or Musicology, which, as a branch of mathematics has always been held in high regards in Persia/Iran; as opposed to music performance (Tarab, Navakhteh, Tasneef, Taraneh or more recently Muzik), which has had an uneasy and often acrimonious relationship with the religious authorities and, in times of religious revival, with the society as a whole.
During the Parthian era, troubadours or Gosans were highly sought after as entertainers.
There are theories in Academia that perhaps the early Dari Poets of Eastern Iran like Roudaki were in fact Gosans.