 Where performed in public spaces, the performers had been tarred with the same brush as popular street minstrels.Until the advent of these programs, it had been taken for granted that any female performers and musicians were less than respectable.Due to the high literary and musical quality of these programs, public perception of music and musicians in Iran shifted, its participants came to be considered—virtually for the first time in Persian history of the Islamic period—as maestros, virtuosos, divas and adepts of a fine art, and no longer looked down upon as cabaret singers or denigrated as street minstrels.