The Rumi Symphony Project: Untold

UNTOLD is the much-anticipated major label debut from acclaimed Iranian composer, vocalist and virtuoso instrumentalist, Hafez Nazeri, and features the legendary Shahram Nazer, Zakir Hussain and Deepak Chopra. An innovative synthesis of Middle Eastern and Western elements, UNTOLD introduces Nazeri as one of modern music's most exciting new visionaries.

Co-produced by Nazeri and David Frost, who was just awarded the Grammy for "Producer of the Year, Classical," Untold is one of the first major releases celebrating the poetry and philosophy of the legendary 13th century Persian poet Rumi and his eternal message of peace, unity and love. This magnum opus features 38 Grammy Award winning musicians and engineers and took over four years and more than 5,000 studio hours in five countries to complete.

Untold is the first cycle of Hafez's ongoing project, the Rumi Symphony Project, and consists of four distinct chapters which at their whole, orchestrate the epic of our universe. The tale begins at the dawn of time, the big bang, and continues with the formation of our planet and life on earth, the emergence of the human race and our journey of the spirit through the seven stages of enlightenment. It ends with an unknown and yet, Untold, ascendance into an indefinable destination of unquantifiable possibilities.

Hafez is joined in this recording by a profound array of guest artists: tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, Grammy-winning drummer Glen Velez, cellists Matt Haimovitz and Johannes Moser, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center violist Paul Neubauer, and the New York Choir.

One of the album s many highlights are the vocals of Hafez Nazeri's father, iconic Persian vocalist Shahram Nazeri, who was the first musician to incorporate Rumi's poetry into song some forty years ago and who's sold over seventy-five million recordings to date. The album's liner notes features the poetry of Rumi as transcribed by best-selling author Deepak Chopra.

In both the instrumental and vocal passages, the listener can hear elements of East and West amalgamated into a single entity, creating a rich texture that sounds like nothing else. At the core of each of Nazeri's compositions is the presence of Rumi, whom in the words of Deepak Chopra, "delivers the divine mystery to us with passion."

"Absolutely exquisite music of the highest caliber that speaks to the soul, music that will live for a long long time," says Chopra. "I think this music has the capacity to totally transform our consciousness, literally cause a mutation in our consciousness and as that shifts everything shifts: the way we think, the way we behave, the way we speak to each other and the way we interact with the world."