Marzieh (Persian: مرضیه, born Ashraf Sadat Mortazaei, 22 March 1924 – 13 October 2010), was an Iranian singer of Persian traditional music. Marzieh started her career in the 1940s at Radio Tehran and cooperated with some of the greatest 20th century Persian songwriters and lyricists like Ali Tajvidi, Parviz Yahaghi, Homayoun Khorram, Rahim Moeini Kermanshahi and Bijan Taraghi. Marzieh also sang with the Farabi Orchestre, conducted by Morteza Hannaneh, a pioneer of Persian polyphonic music, during the 1960s and 1970s. Her first major public performance was in 1942, when, though still a teenager, she played the principal role of Shirin at the Jame'eh Barbod [Barbod Society] opera house in the Persian operetta Shirin and Farhad. In 1994, Marzieh left Iran forever due to the political repression, making her new home in Paris. She performed several concerts in Los Angeles, California and Royal Albert Hall (London) in 1993, 1994 and 1995. The Paris-based composer Mohammad Shams and the Persian tar soloist Hamid Reza Taherzadeh were the main musicians who worked with Marzieh in exile. Marzieh's last concert was performed at Olympia in 2006. The European press have also compared her to Vanessa Redgrave and Melina Mercouri for her willingness to put political and human-rights beliefs ahead of her career, and even ahead of her own safety. Marzieh died of cancer in Paris on 13 October 2010, aged 86.