At the Door (دم در) (2017) – scene on Rumi’s Ghazal 436 for high voice, medium voice, and piano (w/ assistant) (15′)
-commissioned by the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) as part of their NEXT concert series for the Leonard Bernstein Marathon commemorating his Centennial.
-with gratitude to Yashar Saghai and Iago Gocheleishvili for their help making this script from Rumi’s verse, making recitations, and your guidance in this collaborative effort. This project would have not been possible without you.
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This setting of Rumi’s Ghazal 436 is an intimate scene for high voice, medium voice, and piano which focuses on the bond between the the Lover and the Belovèd; a tenant which pervades not only much of Rumi’s output, but many of his Sufi contemporaries and is a focal point of Sufism as a whole. In this mystical sect of Islam, the relationship between the Lover and the Belovéd is a deep and extremely personal one for each of us. We, as the Lover, all desire oneness with the Belovéd yet are consistently unable to achieve this true unison of body, spirit, consciousness, psyche, and self. The Belovéd takes on different meanings for each of us; however, what remains consistent is the desire for oneness with that which is unattainable; the Belovéd is the amalgamation of intimacy. In this scene, these two figures converse separated by a door, the Lover requesting entry to the Belovéd’s abode, and the Belovéd questioning the Lovers intentions. While the two consistently come very close to each other, a true unification is never achieved, only brief spurts of fleeting sensuality and passionate intimacy abound, the ever present Door separating the two incessantly, the oneness constantly fleeting into the ether.