An Evening with Rumi

with the composer and singer Esbe

Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), 50 Fitzroy Street, London W1T 5BT

The Anglo-Turkish Society and the Royal Anthropological Institute present a concert by the composer and singer Esbe, with Jeff Rodrigues on guitar.

Composer and singer, Esbe, has recently produced an album featuring lush cinematic strings, delicate Early Music arrangements and Arabic scales. These arrangements, combined with her clear and resonant vocal style, bring together this eclectic mix to celebrate the musical and historic influences of the poetry she has set to music of the renowned Sufi mystic poet, Jalaluddin Rumi (b1207).

Esbe first became interested in the literary heritage of the Middle East when she read that the European troubadours took their tradition from Bedouin poet travellers. And so, she began reading English translations of these poems, some from as early as C9th Iraq, and she was struck by the resonance of their themes and their timeless connection with contemporary thought and life experience. The Rumi poems are taken from “Words of Paradise”, a book of reinterpretations by Raficq Abdulla.