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The Persian Love Poetry of Hafez set to music
With Special Guests
Mahmood Karimi Hakak
Bill Wolak and
Srinivas Reddy on Sitar
Mahmood Karimi-Hakak is a poet, author, translator, and theatre and film artist who has created over 60 stage and screen productions in the United States, Europe and his native Iran. His plays and films have received recognitions and awards at such festivals as Edinburgh, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, Ft. Lauderdaleand Tehran, including Best Director, 1979; Outstanding ForeignFilm, 1995; Critics' Choice, 1999; and Critics' Pick, 2007. A recipient of 2005 Raymond Kennedy and 2009 Fulbright awards, Mahmood has authored seven plays. His publications include two booksof poetry (Pebbles of Solitude, 1991 and Rocks of Desire, 2000),two translations into Persian (shive-ye fani-ye namayeshnameh khani 1995 and roya-ye shabe nimeh-ye tabestan, 1999) and three translations [with Bill Wolak] into English (Your Lover'sBeloved: 51 Ghazals by Hafez, 2009, Love Emergencies, 2011, and Love Me More Than the Others: Selected Poetry of Iraj Mirza,2014), as well as numerous articles, essays and interviews in both English and Persian. At present he serves as Professor of Creative Artsat Siena College.
Bill Wolak is a poet who lives in the United States and teaches Creative Writing at William Paterson University. He has just published his tenth collection of poetry entitled The Lover's Body. With Mahmood Karimi-Hakak, he has
translated
Your Lover's Beloved: 51 Ghazals of Hafez and
Love Me More Than The Others: The Selected Poems of Iraj Mirza;
both of which were published by Cross-Cultural
Communications. His translations have appeared in such
magazines as
The Sufi Journal, Basalt, Visions International, World Poetry Journal, and Atlanta Review.
His critical work
and interviews have appeared in
Notre Dame Review, Persian Heritage Magazine, Gargoyle, Southern Humanities Review,
The Paterson Literary Review, Ascent, Florida English, and Prime Numbers Magazine.
He was selected to be a featured poet
at festivals in India four times: at the 2011 Kritya International Poetry Festival in Nagpur, at the 2013 Hyderabad
Literary Festival, at the Tarjuma 2013: Festival of Translators in Ahmedabad, and most recently at the 2014 Hyderabad
Literary Festival.
Srinivas Reddy began his musical training as a guitarist and composer.In 1998 he graduated from Brown University with a BA in South AsianStudies and completed his senior project entitled NaadaSat, a multiinstrumental ensemble piece that reflected his growing interest in SouthAsian philosophy and music. After moving to San Francisco in 1998, Srinivas met his guru and mentor Sri Partha Chatterjee, a direct discipleof the late sitar maestro Pandit Nikhil Banerjee. Since then Srinivas has dedicated himself to Indian classical music and rigorously trained with his teacher in the traditional guru-shishya style. Srinivas is a professional concert sitarist and has given numerous recitals in the US and India. He has three albums to his credit: GITA (1999), Sitar & Tabla (2001) andHemant & Jog (2008). In 2011 Srinivas graduated from UC Berkeley with a PhD in South and Southeast Asian Studies. Under the guidance of Professor George Hart he studied Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu literary traditions and completed his thesis on the Vijayanagar emperor Krishnadevaraya and his grand Telugu epic Amuktamalyada. A translation of the work entitled Giver of the Worn Garland has recently been published by Penguin Books. He is currently Assistant Professor of South and Southeast Asian Studies at IIT Gandhinagar. He spends his time performing, teaching and conducting research in California, Rhode Island, and India |
