'Rumi Symphony Project,' Based on Works of Sufi Poet, to Premiere at L.A.'s Disney Hall | Playbill

Related Articles
Classic Arts News 'Rumi Symphony Project,' Based on Works of Sufi Poet, to Premiere at L.A.'s Disney Hall The Rumi Ensemble along with two Los Angeles Philharmonic musicians will premiere the first cycle of composer Hafez Nazeri's Rumi Symphony Project, based on the works by the 13th-century Sufi poet, tomorrow night in Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Nazeri is the son of Shahram Nazeri, the Iranian Kuridish vocalist once called the "Pavarotti of Iran" by The Christian Science Monitor. Shahram has worked with the poems of Rumi for decades and will be among the performers in tomorrow's collaboration, which honors the 800th anniversary of Rumi's birth.

The first cycle of Nazeri's project, called In the Path of Rumi, is described by the Pasadena Weekly as a "sometimes brooding fusion of Persian and Western instruments, styles and sounds" and a "musical representation of not only Rumi's transcendent themes, but also Hafez Nazeri's hopes for a peaceful future." It is part of his attempt to combine classical Iranian and Western music into a genre that can be termed "post-classical Persian music," according to the Los Angeles Times.

A 2005 graduate of the Mannes College The New School for Music, the 28-year-old composer was trained on the tambour and sitar as a child, and later studied the daf, an Iranian percussion instrument.

Nazeri's works have been performed by the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra in London's Royal Albert Hall, and at festivals and venues such as the Sodra Teatern in Stockholm, De Bijloke in Ghent, Belgium, the Fez Festival in Morocco and the Th_ê¢tre de la Ville in Paris.

 
RELATED:
Today’s Most Popular News:
 X

Blocking belongs
on the stage,
not on websites.

Our website is made possible by
displaying online advertisements to our visitors.

Please consider supporting us by
whitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.
Thank you!