The Work
Poetry as a living encounter, not words on a page
Rumi's poetry speaks across centuries — intimate, immediate, carrying the great human questions of love, longing and transformation. String of Pearls was founded in London to bring that poetry into the living presence of an audience, where Persian song, storytelling and Sufi whirling become a language of their own. English and Persian are woven together; each performance leaves space for the quiet that arises when a room is truly listening.
Rumi
A starting point for an encounter, not a subject to explain
Jalāl ad-Dīn Rumi wrote in the thirteenth century, yet his poems travel with remarkable ease across language and time — circling longing, love and the possibility of finding one's way through. For String of Pearls, his words are not simply presented on stage, but offered as an opening: with the voice, with music, with movement, and ultimately with the audience itself.
String of Pearls Ensemble is dedicated to the transmission of sacred poetry, music and song as a contemporary performative art. Rooted in Sufi and Persian spiritual traditions and expressed in both English and Persian, our work honours lineage while speaking clearly to the present moment, allowing cultures, languages and inner worlds to meet within a shared field of listening.
Each performance unfolds as a complete arc, in which poetry, storytelling, song, music and whirling are placed with intention and reverence. The poetry of Jalāl ad-Dīn Rumi, one of the great masters of the Sufi path, stands at the heart of the work, alongside related mystical texts — not as literature to be explained, but as living sources of wisdom, capable of opening inward attention and subtle recognition.
We perform in theatres, concert halls, sacred spaces and festivals, offering evenings shaped by stillness, clarity and depth. These events are neither purely concert nor ceremony, but rest at a quiet threshold between art and devotion, where sound and language become vehicles for remembrance.
The ensemble came together through years of performing and travelling, meeting on the road through shared projects and parallel paths. What binds us is not only artistic affinity, but a shared spiritual orientation, deep mutual trust, and a commitment to listening — to the material, to one another, and to the subtle intelligence that moves through the work.
String of Pearls continues as a disciplined, devotional practice in artistic form.
Offered in the Sufi spirit of good will to all.
With love,
Laura Merri
A Closing Note
