Speakers

• 

  Sarmad Michael Harrison
  

  Sarmad Michael Harrison

  Sarmad Michael Harrison is a composer and pianist who forges a new approach to composition by blending classical music traditions of Europe and North India, and by utilizing just intonation (the ancient system of tuning based on pure harmonic proportions). He is a disciple of Pandit Pran Nath, Terry Riley, La Monte Young, and Ustad Mashkoor Ali Khan. Harrison received his Masters in Composition at the Manhattan School of Music and is the recipient of Guggenheim and NYFA Artist Fellowships. His music has been commissioned and recorded by leading performers including Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, Alarm Will Sound, and Cello Octet Amsterdam. Revelation, his critically acclaimed work for piano in his own tuning system, was selected among the Best Classical Recordings of the Year by The New York Times and Boston Globe. Harrison seeks expressions of universality via the physics of sound – music that brings one into a state of concentrated listening as a meditative and even mind-altering experience. His recent album Seven Sacred Names is based on the Sufi teachings of the Seven Leading Names. Harrison has been an initiate in the Inayatiyya since 1977.

• 

  LatifaNoor Anderson
  

  LatifaNoor Anderson

  LatifaNoor Elizabeth Anderson is a graduate of the Na Koja Abad Global Suluk Academy class, Vice President of the Music Activity for Oceania and the Americas, a Representative in the Inner School, Musical Representative, spiritual guide, retreat guide, and center leader for the Light of Harmony Center, Inayatiyya of Dobbs Ferry. She is also a cellist and vocalist; her Indian raga studies inspired the CD LatifaNoor, a synthesis of Raga and Western classical music for cello, voice, and tampura. As a cellist she has toured China, Japan, Mexico, Italy, England, Germany, Finland, Australia, Israel, India, and the US with the Meliora and Cassatt String Quartets and with the New York City Opera. She has recorded for Telarc, Nonesuch, and RCA and her next recordings will feature sacred vocal music for retreat.
  When not traveling for concerts or leading alchemical singing retreats, LatifaNoor loves walking in nature with her basset hound Ruby, cooking for family and friends, and knitting socks.

• 

  Hadi Yves Saint-Pierre
  

  Hadi Yves Saint-Pierre

  Hadi was initiated in Ziraat in the early 2000s, but Ziraat took on more importance in his life in 2020, when his wife suggested they start farming organic fruits and vegetables — bringing real connection with the birds and insects in their field, with the daily and monthly cycles of the sun and moon, and with the living soil. Ziraat is a thread that ties farming to his long-lasting interests: a strong connection to the watersheds of the Ottawa and Rideau rivers, and youth environmental activism. As a former swimming teacher and a kayak enthusiast, Hadi is of the lineage of the water element, with a connection to air as a singer and woodwinds player. Grounding in the earth is more recent. Hadi lives in Canada’s capital. You may have seen him as a translator (English to French) on Inayatiyya programs.

• 

  Nizam un Nisa Husain
  

  Nizam un Nisa Husain

  Nizam un Nisa Husain is a Murshida, Cheraga, Guide, Representative and Facilitator of the Anjumani-Islam group in the Inayatiyya. She is also the National Representative of Inayatiyya Canada. A student of classical Chishti Sufism since 1988 and a devoted follower of the Inayatiyya since 2004, she has led Inayatiyya centers in Lahore, in Dubai and now in Oakville, Ontario where she lives. A journalist and editor by profession with an MA in Journalism/Near Eastern Studies from NYU, Nizam un Nisa is a graduate of the first European Suluk class and has mentored several Suluk classes including the first graduate Suluk. She has led Sufi retreats, taught Sufi meditation to Buddhist monks in Tokyo and been invited to the UN as part of an international delegation of spiritual leaders.