A performance focused on the poetry and the portrayal of episodes from the life of the 13th century Persian poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi. Hailed as the supreme poet of love, his poems have fired the imagination of millions of readers worldwide.

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The Hamdel Ensemble, led by Seyed Ali Jaberi, is an acclaimed contemporary Persian Sufi music ensemble featuring professional musicians and scholars of Persian Sufi traditions who have performed worldwide. Formed in Iran in 1997, the Hamdel Ensemble gathers and adapts traditional Persian Folk and Sufi music; sharing its unique language, culture and history, using Iranian and Western instruments to perform breathtakingly beautiful music.

 

Few have made the sound of the tanbour, a sacred instrument among the Persian-speaking world and a powerful and sonorous cultural icon, as beautifully accessible as Seyed Ali Jaberi. Jaberi is an award-winning master of his art, one whose albums remains hugely popular among lovers of traditional Persian and Sufi music. His most recent best-seller, Psalms of Loneliness, scored four out of five stars with Songlines magazine. Jaberi is seen as one of the most significant figures in contemporary Sufi music and has been a pioneer for the tanbour, performing in Iran, North America, Europe and Asia.

 

This event is presented in partnership with Sheffield University Concerts, and will feature the usual TalkingGigs style, with the first part consisting of a conversational Q&A combined with musical illustration. The second part will be an all music performance.  This is an online event and tickets are available from the link above.

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It will be recorded live in the University's atmospheric Drama Studio , with its state-of-the-art video and sound equipment, and then broadcast as an exclusive stream on Thursday 6 May 2021 at 7.30pm. After the event, ticket holders will be able to stream it again from the same link at their leisure for at least 24 hours.

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It promises to be an exceptional production with a mesmerising performance of Persian Sufi music inspired by the works of Sufi poets like Rumi, Hafaz, Bulleh Shah and Khwaja Ghulam Farid. Whilst adapting many traditional tunes Seyed composes many of his own in this tradition. The Sufi ethic is core to the music of the Hamdel Ensemble and by way of a physical extension to the music they are joined by a traditional 'whirling' dancer to bring a visual image of devotional transcendence to the stage.

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