The crowd goes wild for Iranian pop idol Benyamin Bahadori as the heartthrob of the country’s young people begins his set. But his ballads seem to be missing part of his signature sound. A clue lies in a lone cello resting on stage. The drama began just before the Dec. 26 concert commenced in Tehran. The musician’s team filed the official paperwork, but minutes before he was set to go on stage, authorities prevented his female cellist, Melanie Avanessian, from performing.

“In her honor, and [in honor of] the people who had come to see her, we left her seat empty by her instrument,” Benyamin’s producer, Salim Ahmadi, told the Iranian Labor News Agency on Dec. 27.

Just a few weeks after his Tehran concert, Benyamin canceled his Jan. 25 Kerman performance. In a long Instagram post to his 1.3 million followers written on the same day, Benyamin (@benyaminmusic) talks about how his female vocalist, Mojgan Abolfathi, was also banned from performing and how his band set up a new rule: “We have decided that any time our female artists are told they can be present on the stage but then at the last moment we’re told they cannot, we — in respect of the women of our country — will cancel our program.” Iranians reacted positively to his ultimatum, with the post receiving over 2,300 comments and 40,000 likes. One woman wrote, “Bless you, dear artist. Thanks for the beautiful work and support.” Another said, “I’m proud of your line of thinking. If only some people understood that women’s presence at concerts doesn’t cause any problems. If more people thought the way you did, Iran would progress a lot more in its arts.”

Benyamin isn’t the first artist to have female members of his band prevented from performing. A similar incident happened to singer Salar Aghili while he was performing in Esfahan on Jan. 12-13. Shahrouz Balouchestani, a band member and flutist from Esfahan’s National Orchestra, said female musicians had performed in various cities for years without any problems, and he didn’t understand why officials prevented the orchestra’s female musicians from appearing on stage next to men.