*Four Glimpses of Desire (چهار نگاه اجمالی از هوس) (2016) – for high voice and piano (17′)
-commissioned by Veronica Anușca and Mihai Murariu for Festivalul Internațional Craiova Muzicală 2016
*also available for SATB choir, wind quintet, double bass, and piano
I. (دلبره) Delbaré (5’)
II. (مژده به بلبل دهید) Mosjdeh beh bolbol dehīd (5’)
III. (بيک نگاه مرحمت) Beh yek negāh-i-marhamat (2’)
IV. (خواهٔم که بر ذلفت) Khāham keh bar zolfat (5’)
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-With traditional texts in Farsi, this set of four Persian songs reflects on love, desire, and longing, with The Belovéd at the center of it all. This Sufi ideal of the close and extremely intimate relationship between The Lover and The Belovéd is displayed directly in these four songs. There is a constant longing for oneness and unification with The Belovéd which The Lover has been separated from, a concept and core ideal of Islam that is especially important in Sufism. The longing for intimate closeness with that which seems unobtainable is essential in these four texts, and a wealth of Sufi poetry. This desire is all encompassing: passionate, physical, spiritual, sexual, emotional, and mystical. An excerpt from ancient Sufi poet and mystic Farid ud Din Attar exemplifies this belief:

In Love no longer ‘thou’ and ‘I’ exist,
For Self has passed away in the Beloved.