Rumi Festival Material

 

Kudsi Erguner opening concert

 

Kudsi Erguner, one of the foremost ney masters of our times, is particularly famed for his activities helping to introduce Ottoman and sufi music to the world with internationally acclaimed projects and recordings. He lives and works in Paris as a musician, composer, musicologist, teacher and author.

Below is his concert for the opening of the Rumi festival, in two parts, followed by a talk he gave the next day.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Saturday's talk:

 

Alan Williams

 

Alan Williams is professor of Iranian studies and comparative Religion at Manchester University. He is translator of the benchmark Penguin edition of Rumi’s masterwork the Mathnawi (published as Spiritual Verses).

 

 

Roderick Grierson

 

Roderick is the director of the Rumi Institute at the Near East University in Cyprus. He serves on the editorial committee of the Mawlana Rumi Review and is preparing an exhibition of engravings and lithographs of Mevlevi dervishes that will travel to the United Kingdom and United States in 2015. His translation of the Book of Counsels by the Turkish sufi poet Yunus Emre will be published later this year.

 

Andrea Helesfai and Aaron Cass

 

Born in Budapest and a graduate of the Béla Bartók Conservatory and the Franz Liszt University of Music, violinist Andrea Helesfai is now based in Zurich. Her chamber orchestra and solo performances have met with acclaim worldwide. Here she is accompanied by extracts from Rumi's poetry, read by Aaron Cass, director of the festival.

 

 

Dervish musicians

 

A troupe of dervishes from Istanbul played classical Turkish music, composed largely as accompaniment to contemplative practices, including the whirling dervish Sema. The troupe consists of Sühendan Çetin (ney), Refik Hakan Talu (tanbur), Serkan Mesut Halili (kanun), Serdar Bisiren (bendir), Muharrem Burak Ecevit (semazen – Whirling Dervish).

 

 

Muriel Maufroy

Muriel Maufroy is a writer and novelist whose works include the recent novel The Garden of Hafez and the bestseller Rumi’s Daughter, now translated into nine languages. She lives in Wales and is regularly involved in activities at the Gladstone’s library, a residential library dedicated to dialogue, debate and learning centre on social, moral and spiritual questions.

 

 

 

Emily Young

Emily Young is the UK’s foremost stone sculptor and a leading figure in the field of stone carving, with a major exhibition We Are Stone’s Children currently at the 2013 Venice Biennale. Her work is in public and private collections across the globe, including The Imperial War Museum and St Paul’s Churchyard, London, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Salisbury Cathedral and La Defense, Paris. In 2012 her work was exhibited at The Paul J. Getty Museum, Los Angeles.