When the festival turned inwards: an evening of soul-caressing under the umbrella pines of Emirgan
By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 18, 2022
On Monday June 13 I went to a concert of Turkish classical music given as part of this year’s İKSV Music Festival, on the Fıstıklı Teras of the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan. The fact that this terrace overlooks the Bosphorus is important in itself, but its significance increased to...
Posted in
Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
An exceptionally enjoyable concert at the new Atatürk Cultural Centre – for all its failure to deliver ‘volume’
By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 14, 2022
On Saturday June 11 I made my first visit to the newly-opened Türk Telekom Opera Hall in the Atatürk Cultural Centre in Taksim Square. The occasion was a concert by the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra that was part of the Beyoğlu Kültür Yolu Festivali, an event that translates as the...
Posted in
Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
A play of fragility and strength
By Monica Fritz | June 10, 2022
Don't miss the last days of 'Billur', Yasemin Aslan Bakiri's Glass Art exhibition in Nevmekan Selimiye. The show has been prolonged till June 20 and is well worth the ferry ride over. Intricately crafted kaftans woven with metals and glass hang in Sultan Selim III's historic hamam, now a library,...
Posted in
Contemporary Art, Exhibitions, Highlights Turkey
A whistlestop tour of the festival by Cornucopia's music critic
By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 2, 2022
_Pascal_Albandopulos_seçili_sm_567_851_85.jpg)
The countdown has begun for this year’s İKSV Music Festival, which is to begin on June 6. Classical music enthusiasts may have already read my piece on this subject in the latest edition of
Cornucopia, but a gentle reminder may be necessary. I need to make it clear at the...
Posted in
Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, Main Featured Turkey
The Cornucopia community
By Monica Fritz | May 3, 2022
Sir Don McCullin, photographer, and Barnaby Rogerson, author, on the road again, here in Lake Bafa. Subscribe to Cornucopia and join avid readers around the world, from Rome to the Australian bush and back to Istanbul again. We are in the thousands!
Father Ian in his Istanbul Cottage. A...
IKSV film festival special
By Monica Fritz | April 15, 2022
Tomorrow, Saturday April 16th is the last chance to see this delicate and beautiful documentary about the award winning Magnum photographer Josef Koudelka's journey through Western Turkey's ruins, his observations on life and art while waiting for the sun. Crossing the Same River is a practically a project by filmmaker...
By Monica Fritz | April 14, 2022
Two young Parisians marry and decide to go on an adventure. Marie and Arnaud Epagneau-Comte started walking in June 2021 from Dijon to Istanbul carefully planning the route by the seasons, over a span of 10 months. Both of them architects, they filled up notebooks and camera cards documenting, drawing, photographing...
By Cornucopia Connoisseur | March 26, 2022
Spring has arrived early in London this year, and with it Pietro Longhi’s sumptuous
Procession of the Venetian Bailo Francesco Gritti in Constantinople, painted in Venice in 1731. It is one of the highlights of this week’s Islamic Sales, Lot 76, in Sotheby’s Art of the Islamic World & India including...
Posted in
Fine Art, Islamic Art, Textiles
A very special place, for people and dogs
By Monica Fritz | February 28, 2022
Even in the centre of this city of 18 million, respite can be found in patches of woodland. Tucked away in the upper grounds of Bosphorus University, behind Rumelihisarı, lies, BUpaws. BUpaws is a dog sanctuary for street dogs, a place for them to shelter and feel loved: some 70...
By Monica Fritz | January 10, 2022
Stepping out of cacaphonic noise into restful silence is a very Istanbul experience. An easy, magical escape from the overwhelming crowds in the square below the Galata Tower is down a side street, at Galata Kulesi Sok 26. A heavy iron door opens to reveal the small churchyard of Saints...
Cornucopia's three decades of delight
By Monica Fritz | January 8, 2022
In celebration of
Cornucopia's 30th anniversary I would like to pull out a selection of my favourite spreads. Celebrating 30 years of
Cornucopia also means celebrating 30 years of collaboration with our creative director, Clive Crook. Here are some examples of his many memorable pages. Above is the Yeşil Mosque with...
Andrew Finkel pays tribute to the mesmerising Robert Chenciner, a maverick scholar and fond friend, who has died in London
By Andrew Finkel | November 8, 2021
In medias res, the curtain rising on the action in full flow, might seem an odd eulogy to recite over the memory of a dear friend, but Robert Chenciner was someone in perpetual motion and even now it is hard to think of him as being still. Think Christopher Lloyd’s...
Posted in
Obituaries
London Islamic Sales Week October 2021
By Cornucopia Connoisseur | October 25, 2021
This week is Islamic Sales Week in London, with wonderful curiosities being auctioned at Sotheby’s, Bonhams and Christie’s. Lots 213 and 214 in the Sotheby’s Arts of the Islamic World & India on October 27 were created for a truly enchanted world. It was an age when two Turkish-speaking dynasties, the Ottomans...
Posted in
Fine Art
Wind in their sales: Contemporary Istanbul is back
By Monica Fritz | October 11, 2021
We came back from the Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair yesterday feeling tired and pleased, having spent a week immersed in art, hearing stories and new proposals, making new friends and meeting many new subscribers, seeing old friends and lots of catching up. It was great to feel Istanbul alive again...
By Cornucopia Connoisseur | October 10, 2021
The last day of Contemporary Istanbul. Don't miss it. And do get there as soon as you read this, so that you can grab coffee and a bail of straw by the water, the Golden Horn's smartest ringside pew. You will find Cornucopia in the entrance hall, under the Ayşe...
Quartet Muartet ten years on
By John Shakespeare Dyson | October 7, 2021
One warm evening in September, four of Turkey’s most talented jazzmen – people who had not played together for over ten years – had a musical reunion that I was privileged to attend (Above: Quartet Muartet 10 years on: from left, Sarp Maden, Genco Arı, Alp Ersönmez, Volkan Öktem). The...
Posted in
Music & Performing Arts, - Musical Shares
Mahallah Festival now on till Sept.26th
By Monica Fritz | September 17, 2021
This eclectic Arts Festival is in it's last days and is a must! The Mahallah Festival is stunningly organised and curated by Sabine Küper-Büsch and Thomas Büsch of the Diyalog Derneği Istanbul and partly sponsored by the German Consulate of Istanbul and the Austrian Ministry of Culture. The phenomena Murmuration,...
Bliss under the pines: the Istanbul Music Festival is back and our music critic indulged in his first live concert of the year
By John Shakespeare Dyson | August 27, 2021
On Wednesday August 25 I went to Emirgan for a concert on the ‘Fıstıklı Teras’ (Pine Tree Terrace) of the Sakıp Sabancı Museum. It was a balmy summer evening and outside the Atlı Köşk – the main building of the complex, approached via a wide marble stairway – there was...
Posted in
Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
Little Amal, a young refugee, embarks on a remarkable journey
By Claire McIntosh | August 8, 2021
Seeing a 3.5 meter tall puppet of a little girl, making her way down the street, or out of the window of a car on the way to work, would certainly turn heads. Thus is the goal of Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson. Created by the minds of the Good...
Posted in
Exhibitions, Fundraiser, Good causes, Highlights Turkey, Highlights Around The World
The abstract world of Etel Adnan, whose show at the Pera Museum ends this week
By Thomas Roueché | August 2, 2021
This week marks the last opportunity to catch
Impossible Homecoming, a show of the work by the artist and writer Etel Adnan at the Pera Museum. Adnan’s work, shown here for the first time at a major institution in Istanbul, are abstract landscapes that confront memory through the powerful use...
