Refugee Songs, A Musical Journey is a unique concert experience that weaves together an original world fusion and acoustic-rock musical score with spoken word poetry and storytelling to narrate the journey of a young Persian American musician uprooted and his subsequent struggle to create a new home for himself in the United States. Interwoven with spoken word poetry inspired by oral histories gathered from refugees, Refugee Songs offers an intimate close-up on one young man’s experience of childhood displacement and coming of age as well as wide-angle poetic musings on the triumphs and tribulations that many displaced people experience—albeit differently—in their own journeys.

Delving deeply into the ways that music serves to keep alive displaced refugees’ cherished memories of their lost homelands, while offering strength, comfort and inspiration in their sometimes-elusive search for identity and belonging in the U.S., Refugee Songs is a poignant and powerful meditation on universal themes of cultural identity, family, inter-generational trauma and loss, as well as resilience, self-acceptance, and the healing power of love.

Inspired by the true story of a young musician fleeing Iran with his family , Refugee Songs is a creative collaboration between the Mystic Groove Collective, and scriptwriter Anita Casavantes Bradford, associate professor of Chicano/Latino Studies and History at the University of California Irvine.