Haleh Liza Gafori is a vocalist, composer, translator, and poet born in NYC of Persian/Iranian descent. In GOLD RUMI, the cross-media performance piece named after her book (published by New York Review Books in 2022), she weaves her acclaimed translations of Rumi’s poetry with music, original text and songs, sung in Persian and English, creating a disorientingly orienting, transcendent and uplifting musical and poetic conversation in which 800-year old mystical thought dialogues with our times.

After three sold out shows in NYC, she looks forward to sharing the work at Le Poisson Rouge. She’ll be joined by GRAMMY-nominated multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Daniel Fresco.

“Ecstatic and piercing…[Haleh Liza Gafori] has lifted a veil, bringing Rumi closer into the quick of our present. Each piece is a divine invitation. Free your mind. Drown in love.”  – V (formerly Eve Ensler)

“GOLD is everything Rumi was himself—sacred, profane, laugh out loud funny, deeply earnest, demotic, and yes, Persian. There’s a rich fluency here not just in idiom but in gesture, in spirit.”
– Kaveh Akbar, poetry editor at The Nation

“Gafori’s work is insistent, lyrical, filled with music and textured, as it extols and marvels at our natural world and our place therein…in the midst of terror, fear,  and indifference, she extends towards us beauty and hope.” – author Nathan McClain

“Shahzad Ismaily is one of music’s most coveted collaborators.” – The New York Times