Building Harmony: Uniting Across Difference Through Music

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Join the GSAS Office of Culture, Community, and Engagement for a concert bringing together Sufi kamancheh virtuoso and vocalist Payam Yousefi and Sephardic Jewish singer-songwriter Lily Henley for an evening exploring “The Role of Song and Faith in Healing the Self and the World.” Through individual and shared performances, followed by a moderated conversation and Q&A, the event will explore the power of music, faith, and cultural traditions to foster connection, healing, and solidarity.

The concert and Q&A will be followed by a short reception, also in Swartz Hall.

Artist Bios

Payam Yousefi

Payam Yousefi (PhD Harvard, 2023) is an Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Florida specializing in the musics of Iran and the greater Middle East, with research interests in creative practice as world making and sacred musics. During 2025-26 Yousefi was a Long-Term Fellow at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, where he conducted research on Sufi music and spiritual practice within contemporary context and expression. A performer-composer of Persian music and kamancheh player, he is a collaborator with MTO Zendeh Delan®. 

Lily Henley

Singer, songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Lily Henley creates music where the worlds of Sephardi Ladino and American folk traditions meet. Her 2022 album Oras Dezaoradas (Lior Editions, Paris), a collection of new music written in Ladino, the endangered heritage language of Sephardi Jews, was called “a fascinating and beautiful release” by The Guardian. Named Album of the Year by Hey Alma Magazine, the record was also featured by Songlines, The Fretboard Journal, NPR, the BBC, and more.

A Fulbright award winner and Carnegie Hall Musical Explorers artist, Lily has held artist residencies at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, JArts Boston, and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. She is a current fellow of Reboot’s The Workshop for JOCSM artists and a recent grant recipient of the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. Lily tours extensively across the US and internationally with her own music and as a collaborator, most recently performing with mystic folk band Rising Appalachia and legendary Irish guitarist John Doyle. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Ethnomusicology at Harvard University, where her research explores Sephardi Jewish song traditions, language, and memory.

Duncan Wickel (Appearing alongside Lily Henley):

Award-winning multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, composer, and inventor Duncan Wickel is “a considerable talent…as persuasive in a traditional ballad as he is country fiddling or ripping through cascading classical flourishes or atonal double-stops” (The Boston Globe). A recipient of the Brian O’Donovan Legacy Fund grant and former artist-in-residence at Wesleyan University, Duncan is also the inventor of the Wickel Buckle, an innovative violin support designed to make the instrument more comfortable and accessible to players across a wide range of bodies and abilities.

Duncan has performed with Jon Batiste and Stay Human and Parliament-Funkadelic on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and with his band Rising Appalachia on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series. His wide-ranging collaborations include Grammy winner Molly Tuttle, Latin Grammy nominee Sam Reider and the Human Hands, acclaimed harpist Maeve Gilchrist, Americana supergroup The Wood Brothers, Irish guitar virtuoso John Doyle, and bluegrass banjo legend Tony Trischka. A seasoned international performer, Duncan has toured in more than 24 countries and on every inhabited continent.

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