Why isn't Cem Mansur's astonishing Turkish Youth Orchestra touring the globe
By John Shakespeare Dyson | August 26, 2024
On July 24 I went to the Atatürk Cultural Centre to see the Turkish Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, the brainchild of conductor Cem Mansur, perform in a programme of works by Hector Berlioz, Sergei Rachmaninov, the young Turkish composer Ege Gür and Sergei Prokofiev. (I thank Mr Mansur for kindly providing...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
Gounod’s Faust, Sheherazade’s Istanbul connections and the brilliant Edgar Moreau
By John Shakespeare Dyson | August 17, 2024
On Sunday June 9 I went to the Atatürk Cultural Centre in Taksim Square to attend the last orchestral concert of the 52nd İKSV Istanbul Music Festival. This event featured the Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Aziz Shokhakimov, and the French cellist Edgar Moreau (photograph by Salih Üstündağ) in a...
Early Glass, Mozart's tribute to Haydn, Reich's Jacob's Ladder: Borusan Quartet and Synergy Vocals in the Süreyya Opera House
By John Shakespeare Dyson | August 3, 2024
On June 8 I took a train on the Marmaray line to Söğütlüçeşme, the station in the valley behind Kadıköy through which the Kurbağalıdere Stream passes on its way to join the Sea of Marmara. Söğütlüçeşme actually means ‘Fountain with Willow Trees’, and Kurbağalıdere means ‘Stream with Frogs’, but I...
By John Shakespeare Dyson | July 29, 2024
This concert, one of the last in the 2024 İKSV Istanbul Music Festival, was also one of those organised within the framework of the ‘Hungarian-Turkish Year of Culture’. Hungarian musicians featured prominently in this year’s events: violinist Kristóf Baráti (a recipient of the Kossuth Prize, his country’s highest cultural award)...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
Art on the island of Chios
By Monica Fritz | July 19, 2024
DEO is a non-profit arts operative promoting contemporary art on the lovely island of Chios, or Sakız Adası, as it is called in Turkish. Facing the breezy Çeşme Peninsula, it is famed for producing a legendary, health-giving commodity, mastic (
sakız). Founded in 2021, DEO is now into its fourth season....
Raci Pişmişoğlu and group at the Nardis Jazz Club
By John Shakespeare Dyson | July 7, 2024
On Monday May 27 I made my way along Büyük Hendek Caddesi towards the Nardis Jazz Club, picking my through the throng of selfie-taking tourists taking advantage of the unique backdrop of a round, stone-built watchtower, built by the Genoese in the mid-14th century, that has become rather famous. On...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Jazz, - Musical Shares
A review of the 2024 İKSV Istanbul Music Festival opening concert
By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 24, 2024
The 2024 İKSV Istanbul Music Festival – the 52nd in the series – opened with a concert at the Atatürk Cultural Centre on May 21. As usual, the proceedings began with speeches by administrators (including Mr Bülent Eczacıbaşı, Chairperson at the İKSV – the ‘Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts’)...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
By Cornucopia Connoisseur | June 4, 2024
Elmadağ Kilim on display at Tophane-İ Amire. The ICOC (International Conference on Oriental Carpets) is back in Istanbul for the first time since 2007 and Cornucopia will be there to greet you at our stand at the Dealers Fair at the Marmara Hotel in Taksim, June 6-9. A superb conference...
The Photographer’s Testimony
By Annette Solakoğlu and Monica Fritz | May 23, 2024
Ozan Sağdıç Ph. Annette Solakoğlu Istanbul Modern’s latest photography exhibition,
Ozan Sağdıç, the Photographer’s Testimony was a wonderful surprise to both of us, unfamiliar as we were with this important figure in the history of Turkish photography. Perhaps a career mostly taken up by press photography, as opposed to being promoted...
By John Shakespeare Dyson | May 23, 2024
On April 25 I made my way to the Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall in Harbiye to listen to the Cuban jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba – a treat I had not experienced since October 2022, when I heard him perform with singer Aymée Nuviola at the Zorlu Centre. Although I...
By John Shakespeare Dyson | May 13, 2024
On March 22 I went to the Atatürk Cultural Centre to hear the USA-born Turkish pianist Özgür Aydın play Beethoven’s
Piano Concerto No 4 in G major, accompanied by the Istanbul State Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of the Finnish conductor Ari Rasilainen. In the second half, the orchestra played...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
By Andrew Finkel | May 6, 2024
Readers of
Cornucopia might think they need no introduction to the work of Monica Fritz. For the last decade she has been photographer at large for this magazine, returning from assignments with sharp, often playful, but always unaffected takes on her subject matter. Her repertoire, from portraiture to mosque furniture,...
Andrew Finkel continues his popular food blog with a visit to the proudly individual Rutin, photographs by Monica Fritz
By Andrew Finkel | May 1, 2024
Rutin is a tiny, determinedly informal restaurant in a wiggly backstreet of Istanbul’s Beyoğlu (pictured above by Monica Fritz). It translates as ‘routine’, but this strikes me as being a misnomer for what is in many ways a puzzling establishment. Far from being humdrum, Rutin appears to be out on...
By Cornucopia Connoisseur | April 21, 2024
An afternoon at the Sotheby's and Christie's during Islamic Sales Week is always full of intrigue and beauty. The Russian court was full of Ottoman treasures. Catherine the Great's crowned cipher the year 1789 have been added on top of the handle of this splendid agate Ottoman cup, set with...
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Main Featured Around the World
By John Shakespeare Dyson | April 21, 2024
Having recently been to see Rossini’s
Maometto Secundo at the Atatürk Cultural Centre, and having had my appetite for opera whetted as a result, I resolved to repeat the experience. Accordingly, on Thursday March 14 I revisited the AKM (Atatürk Kültür Merkezi), this time to see the Istanbul State Symphony...
By John Shakespeare Dyson | March 16, 2024
It had been far too long since I had been to the opera in Istanbul, so on February 28 I made a visit to the Atatürk Cultural Centre to attend a performance of Gioachino Rossini’s two-act opera
Maometto Secundo (‘Mehmet II’), first performed in Naples in 1820. Suffice it to...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Musical Shares, - Opera
İmer Demirer, Ali Perret, Meriç Demirkol and Raci Pişmişoğlu at BOVA
By John Shakespeare Dyson | March 4, 2024
On Sunday February 18 I visited Bova, a small jazz club located in Mis Sokak, Beyoğlu. My companion and I had booked early, and so were given the privilege of sitting very close to the stage. The musicians who entertained us were trumpeter İmer Demirer, pianist Ali Perret, saxophonist Meriç...
By John Shakespeare Dyson | February 25, 2024
The last time I heard Randy Esen sing was in July 2019, when she was performing at Uniq Istanbul with three other musicians: her husband Aydın Esen on piano and keyboards, Tommy Campbell on drums and Greg Jones on bass guitar. In my blog on this mega-memorable gig I wrote...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Jazz, - Musical Shares
In the backstreets of uppercrust Suadiye, Andrew Finkel seeks out a rare culinary species: a chef who cooks what he likes
By Andrew Finkel. Photographs by Monica Fritz | February 5, 2024
A slow-braised rib of beef wrapped in yufka pastry, served on chilli lime yoghurt with smoked paprika oil I have suffered these long years from a split gastronomic personality. One of my selves seeks out Istanbul restaurants that have a practised understanding of the demands of their genre – the...
Prokofiev and Bruckner at the Atatürk Cultural Centre
By John Shakespeare Dyson | February 1, 2024
The programme for the concert I attended at the Atatürk Cultural Centre in Taksim Square on January 5, 2024 consisted of only two works: Prokofiev’s
Violin Concerto No 1 in D major and Bruckner’s
Symphony No 4. Both were played by the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra under the direction of...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
