Haleh Liza Gafori © Beowulf Sheehan / Blue Flower Arts
A New York City–born translator, performance artist, writer, and educator of Persian descent, Haleh Liza Gafori’s translations of the Persian mystic and sage Rumi have been collected in Gold (2022) and Water (2025), both published by New York Review Books. A 2026 and 2024 MacDowell Fellow, Gafori has created a musical and cross-media performance based on the books and has presented her work, via performances, lectures, and workshops, at institutions such as Philadelphia Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, Stanford University, the Academy of American Poets, and Sarah Lawrence College. Her work has been published by Columbia University Press, Harvard Review, Paris Review, and elsewhere. She teaches in the MFA program at St. Joseph’s University, and her translations have been incorporated in college curricula across the country.
Isabel Castellvi is a cellist, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, and composer. Her collaborations span many genres, including world-music-inspired projects, indie rock bands, her own solo projects, free improvisation, performance art, Western classical music, and music for dance and film. Her musical travels have taken her throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Central and South America, and the Middle East. She received a bachelor’s in music performance from DePaul University and a master’s in the contemporary performance program at Manhattan School of Music.
Hamed Erfani is a Persian composer and producer integrating Iranian musical traditions with contemporary harmony and narrative. He holds a Master of Music in Composition from Oklahoma City University, where he studied under Dr. Edward Knight. His works span solo, chamber, and orchestral repertoire, performed by artists and orchestras. He serves as composition judge for American Prize and Symphonina Foundation, panel reviewer for Mid-America Arts Alliance, and Assistant Coordinator of Artist-First Initiatives at Leyenda Foundation. He is a former Oklahoma Youth Orchestra Composer-in-Residence, current Oklahoma Chamber Symphony Composer-in-Residence (2025–27), and member of Composers Diversity Collective and American Federation of Musicians. / Photo by Ioannia Andriotis
Ava Kabealo is a ballet performance major at OU Dance, passionate about performance and artistic expression. Her repertoire includes works by Jiří Kylián and George Balanchine, and she has performed Swan Lake with Oklahoma City Ballet. She is continuing to grow as an artist as she pursues a professional career in dance.
Hossein Khaleghian is a multi-instrumentalist specializing in the oud, setar, and tar, dedicated to advancing Persian and Middle Eastern music. While holding a PhD in civil engineering and actively working in his profession, he has maintained music as a parallel lifelong pursuit. With over twenty years of performance experience, he has appeared in concerts and cultural events in Iran and the United States. In 2026 he helped establish the Iranian Music Ensemble at OU and serves as its instructor.
Brandye Lee’s artistic foundation was shaped at the Jones-Haywood School of Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and The Ailey School. She toured extensively with Ailey II, The Lion King, and Collage Dance Collective, and subsequently served as Collage’s rehearsal director. Lee is a proud former member of the Dance Council for the John F. Kennedy Center. She holds degrees from Smith College and UC Irvine and serves on the ballet faculty in the OU School of Dance.
Mina Raminsabet is the Farzaneh Family Lecturer of Persian Language and Literature at the University of Oklahoma. She holds a PhD in Persian language and literature from the University of Tehran. Her teaching and research focus on Persian poetry, mystical literature, and textual criticism. She has published widely in the field, including articles and translations, and also serves as a contributing editor for World Literature Today.
Zoe Sherinian is professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Oklahoma. An accomplished scholar in Tamil folk music, Dalit liberation theology, and intersections of gender and caste she has authored Tamil Folk Music as Dalit Liberation Theology (Indiana, 2014) and co-edited Making Congregational Music Local (Routledge, 2017). She recently co-edited with Sarah Morelli the teaching volume Music and Dance as Everyday Life in South Asia (Oxford, 2024). She has also produced two documentary films, This Is A Music: Reclaiming an Untouchable Drum (2011), and the multi-award-winning Sakthi Vibrations (2019). Sherinian’s scholarship has been supported by Fulbright, the American Institute for Indian Studies, the Asian Arts Council, ACLS, and multiple grants from OU, including for her latest collaborative digital humanities project to map the musical diversity of the parai frame drum.
