Speakers

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  Mehmet Ungan
  

  Mehmet Ungan

  Mehmet Ungan is a sociologist, musician, lecturer and chairman of the board of the Oriental Music Academy in Mannheim, Germany. As a lecturer at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Mehmet Ungan teaches Islamic-mystical music. At the Mannheim University of Applied Sciences, he teaches transcultural music in social work. With his Sufi music group Hosh Neva he gives guest performances at intercultural and interreligious events all over Europe. He owes his virtuosity on his instruments Ud and Ney to his two teachers Necati Çelik and Ömer Erdogdular (pupil of the legendary Ney master Niyazi Sayin). Mehmet Ungan studied with Oruç Güvenç and for decades has dedicated his life to healing through sound.

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  Ophiel Maarten van Leer
  

  Ophiel Maarten van Leer

  Ophiel Maarten van Leer is a conductor, singer and music teacher with many years of experience in the fields of music and meditation. He comes from a musical family; His mother introduced him to the Sufi message. At 17, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan became his inspiring teacher. He studied conducting and school music-teaching in Utrecht. For many years he has led seminars in ensemble singing, musical improvisation and meditation. He teaches music at a Rudolf Steiner School and directs various choirs in the Rhine-Main area around Frankfurt, Germany.

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  Ruhiya
  

  Ruhiya

  Ruhiya is a singer-songwriter and sound healing practitioner, currently based in Somerset in the UK. Inspired by dreams and nature, her music weaves together influences from her Filipino heritage, Celtic music traditions and Sufi music traditions, including music written by Hazrat Inayat Khan. She is passionate about the voice as an instrument with which to experience mystical depths; and sharing the power of music to harmonise, heal, and transform. ruhiya.com

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  Sharif Wes Matthews
  

  Sharif Wes Matthews

  Sharif Wes Matthews is a musician and Coordinator in the Inayatiyya. First drawn to the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan through The Mysticism of Sound and Music while studying jazz trumpet and classical piano at DePaul University, he later deepened his connection through classes in Boston and a retreat led by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. Initiated in 2014, he has served as music director for the Light of Guidance Center in New York, supporting classes and occasional retreats. Trained as a composer, Sharif holds degrees in jazz and classical composition from New England Conservatory in Boston, where he studied with Bob Brookmeyer, Lee Hyla, Anthony Coleman, and Ra Kalam Bob Moses. His early work was performed by ensembles including the Minnesota Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra. He has set a number of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s prayers and texts to music and, after years working outside of music, is quietly returning to composition with a focus on devotional and contemplative forms.

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  Hayat Nancy Kennedy
  

  Hayat Nancy Kennedy

  Hayat Nancy Kennedy has been a student of Sufism and the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan since 2009. She was initiated into the Inner School of the Inayatiyya by Pir Zia Inayat Khan in 2013 and is a graduate of the Suluk Academy, Jabalqa Class. Hayat is a Co-leader and Representative at the Light of Harmony Sufi Center in Dobbs Ferry, NY, is a Retreat Guide, has received the accolade “Knight of Purity” from the Knighthood of Purity Activity, and is blessed also to be a Representative in the Music Activity of the Inayatiyya.
  Hayat is a jazz pianist, teacher, composer and improviser, and feels blessed to have a life and career exploring and creating music and working with her many beloved students. She is native to the San Francisco Bay Area, and is a graduate of Mills College, B.A. in Music, and New England Conservatory M.M. in Jazz Studies. She was awarded an Artists Fellowship in Music Composition from The New York Foundation for the Arts. Hayat loves traveling to new places, hiking above 8,000 feet, cooking and sharing food with dear loved ones and long walks with her husband and dog Theo.

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  Allyn Miner
  

  Allyn Miner

  Allyn Miner specializes in the history of North Indian music based on Sanskrit, Hindi, and Urdu sources. She has a PhD in Indian Musicology from Banaras Hindu University and a PhD in Sanskrit from the University of Pennsylvania. She spent eleven years in Varanasi, India, where she studied sitar performance with Thakur Raj Bhan Singh and musicology with Professor Prem Lata Sharma. She returned to the United States, became a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and continued performance study, eventually becoming a disciple of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Allyn taught courses on sitar and Performing Arts in South Asia at the University of Pennsylvania until 2017. Her book Sitar and Sarod in the 18th and 19th Centuries is a study of the early history of the sitar. Her Sangītopaniṣatsāroddhāra is a translation of a fourteenth-century Sanskrit musicological text. The Minqār-i Musiqār is a translation of the 1912 Urdu work by Hazrat Inayat Khan. She continues to do research and publish on North Indian music, and performs and teaches the sitar.

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  Tarana Jobin
  

  Tarana Jobin

  Tarana Jobin is one of the founding vice presidents of the Inayatiyya’s Music Activity. She has a long career as an opera conductor and continues to freelance professionally. As a student of Sufism since 2010 and graduate of Sulūk Academy, Tarana is dedicated to reviving the musical legacy of Hazrat Inayat Khan and sharing it with all who find a home in his teachings.