AKAL

In the final weeks of his life, Tony Award-winning composer, arranger, and producer Jamshied Sharifi completed an extraordinary orchestral arrangement of Akal, a song written and originally recorded by his longtime musical collaborators, Mirabai Ceiba. Over 15 years of collaboration, Sharifi produced more than 150 songs with the duo, developing a profound creative partnership. He completed this final, intricate score just nine days before his passing.

The work began with a conversation between Sharifi and his longtime creative collaborator, conductor Frederick Harris, Jr. In July 2025, Harris asked whether there was anything musical he could do for his friend. Sharifi spoke of a mantra he hoped to arrange: a meditation on death, fear, and the timeless nature of the soul. Soon they were pursuing one last ambitious collaboration.

Sharifi wrote for an expansive ensemble of winds, brass, strings, choir, solo voices, harps, and percussion. Just a month after his passing, the arrangement received its world premiere with Mirabai Ceiba at MIT, where Sharifi had studied and led the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble for seven years. Though Sharifi would never hear the work performed, his music would speak for him—a final musical expression of the love, beauty, and transcendence he had spent his life seeking.