Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute congratulates Professor Fatemeh Keshavarz, Roshan Institute Chair in Persian Studies and Director of Roshan Institute for Persian Studies at the University of Maryland, for partnering with the North American Iranian Friendship Association in Tehran, to bring Iranian and American performers together in cyberspace for a historic collaboration.
Seven American singers from the Washington, DC-based opera company IN Series and 19 Iranian musicians of the Solidarity Chamber Orchestra of Tehran collaborated over video and other digital media to perform a rendition of German-British composer Handel’s “Serse,” an operatic series based on the story of Xerxes I of Persia. The socially distanced performance was overlaid with recitations of poetry from Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet and philosopher.