Join performance artist, translator, musician, and vocalist Haleh Liza Gafori for an uplifting night of music and poetry, featuring her acclaimed translations of the 13th century mystic Rumi (published in two volumes, Gold and Water, by New York Review Books) as well as songs sung in the original Persian.
As writer Rebecca Solnit remarked, “If you haven’t heard Rumi’s work performed by a translator who can read him—and sing him—in the original Persian, this Rumi, presented by translator—and rock star—Haleh Liza Gafori is for you.”
Accompanied by cellist Isabel Castellvi, Gafori creates a vibrant cross-cultural musical and poetic dialogue as Rumi’s words, rooted in a love of this earth and reaching toward the infinite, urgently and tenderly speak to us in these times. This performance marks Gafori’s 10-year anniversary of translating his poetry.
The evening opens with a set by the incomparable poet and magical bard, James Bird.
Friday, November 6th, 2026
7:00pm Doors Open / Music at 8:00pm, with an opening set by James Bird. All ages.
In the Barn at Race Brook Lodge, 864 South Undermountain Road ( AKA Rt 41 ) Sheffield, MA (MAP)
Ticket Price: $25 Advance / $30 at the door
STAY THE NIGHT: Race Brook guest rooms are open through November 7.
Click here to request a room
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.