.jpg "Iranian Sufi music ensemble Shams performs an open-air concert in the courtyard of Tehran’s Sadabad Cultural Historical Complex in August 2008.")
TEHRAN -- Iranian Sufi music ensemble Shams will be performing at Imago Dei, an Easter festival that is held annually in Krems, Austria in March and April.
The band’s concert entitled “Dance of Creation” will be performed on March 9.
“This performance will be a repetition of our concerts held in Tehran in (August) 2008 in commemoration of Rumi,” band leader Keikhosro Purnazeri said in press release on Wednesday.
A group of dervishes will also perform sama, the Sufi ecstatic dance, he added.
Tambura and barbat virtuoso Tahmures Purnazeri, and tambura and kamancheh virtuoso Sohrab Pournazeri, and Najmeh Tajadod will also accompany the band as vocalist during the concert.
Among the band members are also Hamidreza Taqavi, Kaveh Gerayeli, Shahab Paranj, Hossein Zahavi, Khorshid Dadbeh, and Amirhossein Hassaninia.
Shams always selects poems by Persian mystic and poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi (1207-1273) for its performances.
The focus of this year’s Imago Dei festival will be on creation myths, the tales of the beginning and the origin of all existence, organizers announced.
The group has written a quotation from Rumi on the festival’s website which reads, “In the waters of purity, I melted like salt. Neither blasphemy, nor faith, nor conviction, nor doubt remained. In the center of my heart a star has appeared. And all the seven heavens have become lost in it.”
The festival will be held at the medieval Klangraum Krems Minoritenkirche and at the Kolomani Hall of Stift Melk.
Bands from Latvia, the Netherlands, Austria, India, and
Belgium will also perform during the event.
MMS/YAW
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