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Brave showing: Stephen Kovacevich at the Seed

By John Shakespeare Dyson | April 14, 2019


The American pianist Stephen Kovacevich gave the seventh in the series of Istanbul Recitals at The Seed in Emirgan on April 12. Seven may be a lucky number for some, but not, unfortunately, for Mr Kovacevich (the first ‘c’ in his name is pronounced as an ‘s’, by the way,...
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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares

New blood for Cemal Reşit Rey’s historic Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra

John Shakespeare Dyson is happily surprised by a thoroughly re-energised Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra

By John Shakespeare Dyson | April 14, 2019


Mussorgsky and Shostakovich were on the menu at a concert by the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra on April 5. It was pleasing to see the auditorium at the Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall nearly full: classical music concerts in Istanbul are getting more and more popular by the year. Standards...
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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares

Josephine Powell remembered

Latest Cornucopia sales figures show continued interest in the photographer and collector

By Cornucopia UK | April 13, 2019


The latest sales figures of Cornucopia’s back numbers show an interest in issue No. 47, from 2012, which had a striking cover photograph of a young Josephine Powell (1921–2007) describing her as Queen of the Nomads (above left). An article by Andrew Finkel accompanied some of her thousands of photographs...
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A Murdering Dress and the Joy of the Unknown

The Istanbul Film Festival is undwerway

By Cornucopia UK | April 12, 2019


The 38th Istanbul Film Festival always has such a gluttony of choice that picking tickets can be overwhelming. Watching a movie without any prior knowledge is a rare experience, so I often try to pop into a film I know little about and let myself be surprised. That’s how I...
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Getty sets out its stall

New on-line archaeology resource, plus money for wall painting conservation

By Cornucopia UK | March 28, 2019


This map of Seljuk’s historic sites is a sample image from the Getty Conservation Institute’s Arches, an innovative open-source cultural heritage data management platform, launched at Claridge’s in London yesterday by directors of the J. Paul Getty Trust. The Trust also announced a $5million endowment grant to the Courtauld Institute of...
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High notes for a Spring Equinox

The Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra with Bomsori Kim

By John Shakespeare Dyson | March 24, 2019


The Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra gave a concert at the Lütfi Kırdar Concert Hall in Istanbul on March 21, 2019 – the day after the Spring Equinox, which happened to coincide with a full moon. The huge open space outside the concert hall, an observation platform set above the valley leading...
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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares

Venice biennale crosses the water

Giudecca is the city’s first permanent arts quarter

By Cornucopia UK | March 21, 2019


The 58th Venice Biennale, opening on May 11, has a new focus on the island of Giudecca, which this week was declared the city’s first permanent arts quarter. More than 60 artists from 30 countries are launching GAD, with a central Giudecca Art District Gallery and Garden adding to ten...
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Travelling women and black quadrilaterals

From constructivism to cosmism and an otherworldly intuition for colour: the SSM’s effusive tribute to the Russian Avant Garde

By Jamie Leptien | March 19, 2019


It’s been 73 years since George Costakis saw Olga Rozanova’s Green Stripe in a Moscow studio and started the collection that, to paraphrase the art historian Margit Rowell, required the history of 20th-century art to be rewritten. Rewritten not just because of the sheer volume and quality of works by...
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Goran Filipec at the Seed

By John Shakespeare Dyson | March 17, 2019


The series of Istanbul Recitals for 2018-2019 at The Seed (the concert hall attached to the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan), continued with a demonstration of pianistic prowess by the Croatian pianist Goran Filipec on Friday March 15. This was, in fact, Hungary’s National Day, the occasion on which Magyarország...
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Gifts and conglomerations

Business is bright at the London Book Fair

By Cornucopia UK | March 15, 2019


Book sales were reported to be healthy at the three-day London Book Fair at Olympia, which ended yesterday. Publishers even said that there was little talk of Brexit in their deals. Audio books are up everywhere — perhaps driven by mobile downloads. This is the age of the conglomerates, with...
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Dolapdere Big Gang at the Jolly Joker, Beyoğlu

By John Shakespeare Dyson | March 9, 2019

The concert by the group Dolapdere Big Gang at the Jolly Joker Club in Balo Sokak, Beyoğlu on March 1 was my first experience of attending a pop concert on behalf of Cornucopia. I should hasten to point out that my reluctance to deal with the popular music scene in...
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John Freely is the favourite…

...and 'Black Sea' is Best Travel and Food Book of the Year

By Cornucopia UK | March 6, 2019


The top sellers on the latest list from Cornucopia Bookshop sees John Freely’s Stamboul Ghosts: A Stroll through Bohemian Istanbul way out in front. This is unsurprising, as Freely was such a popular figure and a masterful guide to Istanbul, with many books to his credit. The London launch at...
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Crimea photos at the Queen’s Gallery

Roger Fenton’s pictures getting a full showing for the first time

By Cornucopia UK | February 28, 2019


These photograph of Ottoman commanders (Ismael Pasha receiving his chibouque, left, and Ömer Pasha, right) are from 360 taken by Roger Fenton in Crimea and now on show at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, as part of the exhibition Russia, Royals and the Romanovs (until Sunday, April 28, 2019). Shadows...
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Musical Shares: Flying fingers at the Seed

By John Shakespeare Dyson | February 18, 2019


The latest in the 2018–19 series of İstanbul Recitals was given by the American pianist Andrew Tyson at the Seed, the concert hall attached to the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan, on Friday February 15. As was the case with last month’s recital, the weather was cold, wet and windy....
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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares

Pomegranates bitten and seen

Jamie Leptien on the Pera Museum’s homage to Parajanov

By Jamie Leptien | February 9, 2019


Sergei Parajanov’s ‘Repentance (Variations on themes by Pinturicchio and Raphael)’, 1989 (courtesy of the Pera Museum) Occupying the fourth and fifth floors of Istanbul’s Pera Museum until March 17, Parajanov with Sarkis is an...
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Posted in Exhibitions, Film, Where the Art is

Touché and all that jazz

Musical Shares: Gilad Atzmon, Sarp Maden and Friends play Istanbul’s newest jazz venue

By John Shakespeare Dyson | February 3, 2019


The Gilad Atzmon / Sarp Maden Quartet – with Gilad Atzmon (above) on saxophone, Sarp Maden on guitar, Ercüment Orkut on piano, Eylem Pelit on bass guitar and Derin Bayhan on drums – performed in a curtain-raising event at Istanbul's new jazz club Touché, located beside the PSM (Performance Arts...
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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Jazz, - Musical Shares

Battersea bliss

Find us this week at LARTA, the fabulous antique rug and textile art fair in Battersea Park

By Cornucopia | January 23, 2019


You can find Cornucopia at LARTA, the London Antique Rugs and Textile Arts Fair, this week, marooned in a lagoon of glorious textiles in Battersea. LARTA shares the Battersea Park venue with the Decorative Antiques and Textiles Fair. The two fairs continue until Sunday. E-tickets are available to subscribers (write...
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Posted in Textiles

The poetry of wrecks

The bright and melancholy photographs of Stefano Benazzo

By Cornucopia | January 19, 2019


In the Rahmi M Koç Museum on the Golden Horn, an institution that has rescued so many from the wrecker's yard, it is salutary lesson to see what might have been: vessels that have succumbed to the vicissitudes of time and tempest. Stefano Benazzo – photographer, sculptor, model maker (both...
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Posted in Main Featured Turkey

A pilgrim’s pre-Ottoman progress

The Levantine adventures of an Italian small-town lawyer

By Cornucopia UK | January 17, 2019


Author John Mole set the clock back to the times of Chaucer in his Anglo-Turkish Society/Royal Anthropological Institute lecture in Bloomsbury last night as he described a pilgrimage to the Monastery of St Catherine in Egypt and the holy sites of Jerusalem undertaken by an Italian lawyer. So short in...
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Cosmic curves

Weaving order into chaos: the kilims of Belkıs Balpınar

By Cornucopia | January 17, 2019


In New York's Ethan Cohen Gallery opens its first solo exhibition of her work, the Turkish textile artist, Belkıs Balpınar, pioneer of the contemporary art kilim, asks her weavers to defy gravity, and space, by introducing curvilinear shapes and vortexes into her flatweave designs. In this short essay the gallery...
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