Fātemeh Vā'ezi (, born March 16, 1950 in Tonekabon, Iran), better known as Parisā (), is a Persian classical singer, Avaz master, and one of the foremost female vocalists from Iran. Early life and musical training After finishing high school, with an emphasis on Persian literature, she started her musical work under the supervision of the renowned Persian Radif teacher, Mahmoud Karimi, a highly respected teacher of classical Persian music whose vast knowledge of the ancient repertoire was fundamental to her career. Karimi once commented: "Parisa is my most promising pupil and she can sing all the modes with the skill of re-interpretation or improvisation necessary to correctly perform Iranian music". Career In the early 1970s, Parisa was training intensely with vocal master Mahmud Karimi at the Honarestan-e Musiqi-ye Meli (National Music Academy) and occasionally performed at the Ministry of Culture's Rudaki Hall. Fulbright scholar of Iranian music Lloyd Miller was also studying with master Karimi in the men's vocal class at the Music Academy. One day master Karimi invited Miller to visit the women's class and Miller was stunned by Parisa's excellent vocal skills and decided to do everything possible to help her rise to the top of the Tehran music scene. As a music writer in most publications in Tehran, Miller began to continually praise everything about Parisa, while he was also writing relatively negative reviews about some of the westernized pop-oriented concerts presented by the Ministry of Culture at Rudaki Hall. Miller was PR person for the Center for Preservation and Propagation of Iranian Music, directed by grand master Daryush Safvat. Since Parisa was funded by a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture, she could not be a member of the NIRT Center until she worked off her scholarship by performing for the Ministry. Miller was saddened by this situation but one day was invited to Rudaki Hall for a meeting with an official from the Ministry. At the meeting Miller was asked what it would take for him to stop writing scathing negative articles about the Ministry for their "inappropriate modern and pop music efforts". According to him, if the Ministry would "allow Parisa to join the Center's cadre of rising young masers of totally traditional music," he would "only write about the good concerts at the Ministry like western classical music or other harmless efforts." The next day when Miller went to the Center he