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Dan and Dale Zola Present: |
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Coming Events |
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Breeze at Dawn CD
On this 1999 release, composer Dale Zola has set fourteen Rumi poems to music. Dale has been immersed in Rumi poetry for almost twenty years—she and her husband Dan produce evenings of Rumi's poetry called The Great Night of Rumi in northern California. She has also conducted a women's singing circle for many years, which is where she found Kirsten, the vocalist heard here. Oud, accordion, pedal steel guitar, bass, cello, didgeridoo, flute and violin set the backdrops for Kirsten's expressive vocalizations, creating a compelling setting for these timeless words of joy, humor, wisdom, spirituality, and connection with the Divine. Selections1. What Is the Soul? 2. Come, Come, Whoever You Are 3. Morning Wind 4. One Night 5. Full Bucket 6. You Are Song 7. Breeze at Dawn 8. Imagine the Time 9. I Never Get Enough of Laughing With You 10. One Who Does 11. God Only Knows 12. Night Goes Back 13. Huge Barrel 14. What Is the Soul? In the words of a listener: “I am having the joy of falling in love with one song after another on this CD. Kirsten Falke's pure voice is both beautiful and inspiring. The arrangements are so different that each song is fresh. I take this CD with me when I walk…” Go to Amazon, to read reviews, listen to selected cuts, and to purchase Breeze at Dawn. |
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ArticlesRumi with a Viewby Andrew Gilbert When the great Islamic spiritual teacher and poet Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi died on December 17, 1273, in Konya in present-day Turkey, men from five different faiths followed his bier in tribute. The transcendent appeal of Rumi's ecstatic Farsi verse has endured over the succeeding centuries, and in large parts of the world his writings are as familiar as Shakespeare once was in English-speaking lands. So perhaps it's not surprising that Rumi's poetry would find a home in the Bay Area. Seven years ago, Dan and Dale Zola produced the first Great Night of Rumi in the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian-Universalists, and were pleasantly surprised when hundreds of people showed up. Over the years the event has moved between Marin and San Francisco. On Friday, for the first time since the premiere performance, the Great Night of Rumi returns to Berkeley. For Dan Zola, the event's increasing popularity is sweet validation of a Rumi-esque moment of inspiration. "I'd never had this happen, but I was walking down the street one day and an idea literally hit me," Zola said. "It was a physical sensation, like in the cartoons when the idea bubble comes from one end of the frame and hits the person: Wouldn't it be great to have a whole night of Rumi's poetry, spoken aloud from memory?" The event's format is like an old-fashioned revue, with one performer after another taking about ten minutes each to recite or sing a Rumi work. The Marin-based dervishes from the Mevlevi Order of America will perform the ecstatic whirling dance inspired by Rumi's writing. Among the dozen or so presenters are Doug Von Koss, who originally inspired Dan Zola to start memorizing Rumi's poetry, actress Chetana Karel, vocalist Kirsten Falke, and Afghani-born poet Halim Shayek (reciting Rumi's verse in the original Farsi), all accompanied by various musicians, including flutist Ernie Mansfield, Claude Palmer on oud, and Brad Van Cleave on tabla. "One of Rumi's lines is 'Don't come to us without bringing music,' so at the first event we accompanied the poems with cellos, sitars, flutes, and drums, and it's taken on a life of its own," Zola said. "There's also a wonderful tradition of jazz and poetry that we're reclaiming, which somehow turned into the parody of the beatnik with the goatee playing bongos." Born in Afghanistan into a long line of Persian religious scholars, Rumi fled with his family from the Mongol invasion and traveled throughout the Muslim world, eventually settling in Konya. When his father died, Rumi succeeded him as a professor in religious sciences, but it was his encounter with a wandering dervish, Shamsuddin of Tabriz, that launched his mystical spiritual quest. His poetry is marked by a sense of intimacy with the divine, often described in his verse as the Friend, and is remarkably accessible to people of any, or no, faith. "For a lot of people Rumi is a spiritual teacher and they're coming at him from that angle," Dale Zola said. "We approach him the way you'd approach an artist, a John Coltrane, and whatever his art evokes in you is what's important." Originally published by East Bay Express Aug 22, 2001 ©2003 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission |
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Poetry SamplesIf you want what visible reality can give, you're an employee.
you're not living your truth.
but you'll be forgiven for forgetting that what you really want is love's confusing joy. This We Have NowThis we have now is not imagination.
grief or joy.
or an elation, or sadness.
This is the presence that doesn't The Guest HouseThis being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.
some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Jelaluddin Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks |
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Rumi on the WebRumiAll things Rumi: biography, samples of Rumi's poetry and other works, an extensive list of books about Rumi, links to other Rumi sites, a glossary, poetry in Persion, Rumi music, a list of translators, Sufism. Mystical Poetry of Rumi!Four pages of Rumi poetry translated by both Coleman Barks and Shahram Shiva. AllspiritAn eclectic source of spiritual information: spiritual writing, poetry, quotations and song lyrics can all be found in abundance. It runs the gamut from Advaita to Zen, ancient to contemporary, and focuses on the poetry of Rumi and Hafiz. Rumi Yahoo GroupFor those who love the poetry and stories of Jalal al-Din Rumi, the 13th century Sufi Mystic. Daily posts present a variety of translators and translations. Many English speaking people are coming to an appreciation of Rumi's poetry through the translations of Coleman Barks and Camille and Kabir Helminski. Examples of those popular works are offered here, along with the lesser known translations of Nader Khalili, Jonathan Star, Annemarie Schimmel, William Chittick and Ibrahim Gamard. |
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