More than 400 People Attended "Celebrating Work and Life of Rumi - A Night of Lectures and Music”

On Saturday, Feb. 16, 2019, more than 400 people attended the Rumi event at ICCNC. The program started with recitation of the Quran by Mr. Omid Hassanizadeh, an internationally known Quranic reciter, then Dr. Payman Amiri, ICCNC’s Chairman of the Board of Directors, gave an introduction to the event.

The first part of the program featured lectures by two outstanding Rumi scholars, Dr. Abdulkarim Soroush, and Robert Abdul Hayy Darr. Dr. Soroush’s lecture titled "Rumi: Teacher and Healer", discussed the centrality and nature of divine love from Rumi’s perspective and the role of God in such a relationship. Mr. Darr in his lecture titled "Rumi and the Understanding of the Human Condition” shared several of Rumi’s poems in Masnavi that demonstrated Rumi’s insight into human nature and condition. ICCNC will post the audio and video of both lectures on the internet very soon. 

The second part of the program was a musical performance by Bamdad Ensemble. Mr. Sirvan Manhoobi (oud) composed the musical pieces for the event, and Seyed Abolhassan Mokhtabad (vocalist) performed Rumi's poems in Persian. The ensemble included Joshua Mellinger (percussion), Doug Pohorski (contrabass), and Ric Louchard (piano). Mr. Manhoobi incorporated Rumi’s poetry with Eastern and Western musical melodies and instruments, employing techniques of improvisation that are used in Eastern and Western musical traditions. He tried to capture in each musical piece the spirit of Rumi’s message of love and harmony. The poems that were used described Rumi's vision of high human ideals and concepts in the language of music.