Translator and Performance Artist Haleh Liza Gafori presents GOLD & WATER, featuring cellist Isabel Castellvi and special guest James Bird
Acclaimed translator of Rumi’s poetry, vocalist, and performance artist of Persian descent, Haleh Liza Gafori, will be joined by cellist Isabel Castellvi and special musical guest James Bird to present a night of poetry by the 13th century sage and mystic Rumi. Reciting translations from her books Gold (2022) and Water (2025), both published by New York Review Books/NYRB Classics, Gafori will also sing excerpts of the poems in Persian, offering us glimpses of the astonishing rhythm and wordplay of Rumi’s original text.
DINING AT trailhead berkshires
Friday, September 5th
7pm: Doors Open, Event starts at 8pm
In the Barnspace at Race Brook Lodge
864 South Undermountain road ( AKA Rt 41 ) Sheffield, MATicket Price: $25 Advance, $30 at the door | GET TICKETS
Race Brook Lodge is a hidden gem in The Berkshires, at the foot of Mt. Race and a short hike from the Appalachian trail. The yoga & event barn at Race Brook is simultaneously rustic and sublime, steeped in hundreds of years of New England history. The Stagecoach Tavern is unpretentious fine dining, exquisite farm-to-table cuisine in a relaxed atmosphere. Much of the food is sourced from Race Farm, right on the property!
ARTIST BIOS
Haleh Liza With ears tuned to the music of American free verse as well as to the subtleties of the Persian lines, Gafori aims to transmit the whirling movement and leaping progression of thought and imagery in Rumi’s poems into contemporary American poetry, while uncovering how deeply, urgently, and tenderly the poetry dialogues with our times.
Sharing her passion for Rumi’s poetry and the liberating messages that pulse through them, Gafori has lectured at universities and institutions, including Stanford University, Sarah Lawrence College, Swarthmore College, the Women’s Library in Istanbul. She has taught literary seminars via the Academy of American Poets, and performed the work at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, Le Poisson Rouge, and elsewhere.
A 2024 MacDowell fellow and recipient of a 2023 New York State Council on the Arts grant, her translations and her original writings have been published by Harvard Review, Paris Review, Columbia University Press, the Brooklyn Rail, Literary Hub, and others. Her first book of translations Gold has been incorporated in university curricula across the country.
Isabel Castellvi is a cellist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, sound healer and music educator. She has performed and toured with various projects including ThingNY, Vanessa Carlton, Mivos Quartet, J.G. Thirwell, Manu Delago, Falu, Diane Cluck, Haleh Liza Gafori, Deep Singh, CocoRosie, and many more. She has composed music to choreography by Parul Shah (NYC), Labyrinth Dance Co (NYC), Isabel Bowser (NC), and Shaleigh Comerford (NC). Isabel is a co-organizer of the PVD Cello Fest, an annual multi-genre cello festival in Providence, RI.
Isabel is passionate about teaching music and creative improvisation to all ages both privately and in various music schools and institutions. She is particularly inspired by the intersection of music and social justice, and the opportunities for teaching social, emotional and somatic learning that music provide. Isabel has worked with organizations to bring music into communities where music education is not always accessible such as MusicWorks in Asheville, NC. She currently teaches music at The Croft School and Community Musicworks in Providence as well as private lessons. She co-teaches a bi-annual songwriting retreat, The Antidote for teen girls with the acclaimed songwriter Sonya Kitchell in upstate NY. Isabel has led classes, workshops & retreats on Nada Yoga, sound healing, yoga and meditation in various yoga studios, Mind Body Centering Yoga teacher trainings, The Omega Institute and at Maderas Village in Nicaragua.
James Bird is a poet/musician/bard local to Western Massachusetts. A live musician at heart, he has shared his ethereal folk music in a diversity of spaces like festivals, farmer’s markets, funerals, wedding ceremonies, ecstatic dances and grief rituals. Myth is a central theme in Bird’s music, using ancient stories to speak to the timeless human experiences of love, loss, friendship, mystery, death and rebirth.
In mid 2024 James finally went into the studio to record Riddles; a story album that weaves through the stories of many mythical characters like Echo and Narcissus, Tammuz, Inanna, Circe and many more. The album is expected to be released in 2025.
James released his first album “Parables” in 2014 (on bandcamp); an EP “Lila” in 2017, and a home-recorded single “Byron Bay” in 2019.
EXPLORE RACE BROOK LODGE
