Niloufar Talebi
Niloufar Talebi will discuss her diverse work of “cultural translation” ranging from literary translation to theater to a cycle of Persian works for classical music, including Abraham in Flames, her upcoming opera inspired by the life and works of Nobel-prize-nominated Iranian poet Ahmad Shamlou (1925-2000). Abraham in Flames is scheduled to premiere at the San Francisco International Arts Festival in the 2018/2019 season. Ms. Talebi personally knew Ahmad Shamlou from his participation in her parents’ literary salons in Tehran in the tumultuous years after the 1979 Iranian revolution. Ms. Talebi won a 2014 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship for her translations of Shamlou’s work.
This presentation will be in English.
Niloufar Talebi is a writer, award-winning translator, producer, and multidisciplinary artist. She is the Editor/Translator of Belonging: New Poetry by Iranians Around the World (North Atlantic Books/2008), the translator of Vis & I (l’Aleph, 2017), and creator of multimedia works, ICARUS/RISE and The Persian Rite of Spring: the story of Nowruz. Ms. Talebi was a Resident Artist with the American Lyric Theater and the Washington National Opera, where she developed two operas as part of her Persian Opera Cycle. As a librettist, she has received numerous commissions: the song cycle Fire Angels (2011/14) by Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; the requiem Epiphany presented by the BAM Next Wave Festival 2015; an adaptation of a Samad Behrangi story, The Plentiful Peach (2015) by the LA Children’s Choir, presented by Stanford Live; and two Persian operas, The Investment (2015) at the Kennedy Center and The Disinherited (2014) at Symphony Space in NYC. She has received accolades from the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Wall Street Journal.
Niloufar Talebi
www.niloufartalebi.com