Some notes on the programme
By John Shakespeare Dyson | May 11, 2020
Truthfully (a prefatory adverb that ought to set alarm bells ringing), I was just preparing a further blog on
chansons last week, this time on the songs of Gabriel Fauré, when – lo and behold! – the editor of the august publication in which these pieces appear seized me by...
By John Shakespeare Dyson | May 9, 2020
Every Monday evening the Wigmore Hall releases a video stream of one of its acclaimed recitals, marvellously recorded and (invisibly) filmed live in what the great counter-tenor Philippe Jaroussky described at a recent performance as London's 'temple to music'. Each concert is streamed for 24 hours – from 7.30pm in...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
The pioneer of installation art in Turkey is chosen for the Turkish Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale
By Ahmet Furkan İnan | May 5, 2020
The Venice Biennale, now rescheduled to take place between May and November 2022, offers an exciting opportunity to observe developments in contemporary art across the world as each country projects its own carefully curated examples. In 2019 the Turkish Pavilion confirmed its growing reputation with İnci Eviner’s installation
We, Elsewhere,...
… in Moda
By Monica Fritz | May 3, 2020
Spring has arrived in Istanbul, and the ancient gum mastic trees (
sakız ağacı) of Moda are just coming into leaf. Only the crowds were missing on May Day… In Cornucopia 52, Monica captured the tree in happier days for
Cornucopia's four-part Istanbul Unwrapped series, available on line here. Elsewhere, Moda...
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Photography
From Javanese gamelan music to the ‘Songs of Bilitis’ …
By John Shakespeare Dyson | April 29, 2020
This is Part B of the second phase of Mélodies: Debussy in Pamphylia, Fauré in Isfahan, Reynaldo Hahn in Istanbul, a serialised blog intended to keep people’s minds off their troubles while they are in isolation. This one continues an account of the
chansons – art songs – of Achille-Claude...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
A tribute to the woman who made headlines by turning the male-dominated world of archaeology upside down
By Rupert Scott | April 28, 2020
On July 21, 1969, in her mid-30s, Iris Love (photographed above by Michael Chesser) made the discovery that would see her become, for a short time, perhaps the most famous archaeologist in the world. She was in her third season of excavations at Cnidus, in the extreme southwest of Turkey ...
The archaeologist Ulrich Mania’s eye is usually trained on the ruins of ancient Pergamon. Here he records a deserted Istanbul
By Ulrich Mania | April 27, 2020
On a dark Saturday morning in March I set off on my bicycle to explore a silent, empty Istanbul. But my enthusiasm for the idea of experiencing the normally bustling districts of Taksim, Sultanahmet and Üsküdar with
no people around quickly gave way to a realisation: how difficult it is to...
The second in a series of articles on the French chanson
By John Shakespeare Dyson | April 18, 2020
This is the second part of
Mélodies, a serialised blog that is intended to keep people’s minds off their troubles while they are in isolation. Just like the first part (which was about Reynaldo Hahn), this one focusses on a composer who wrote
mélodies – French art songs – in...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
By Kim Erkan | April 17, 2020
April 2020, Kuşadası: I was alone in Aydın when quarantine was announced. My family, concerned at my being alone, sent a driver to take me to Bird’s Island Farm, on the hills of Kuşadası, to stay wth my grandson, Alican Ozbaş, his wife, Chantal, their two small sons and my...
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Good causes, Nature
The first of a three-part series in which our music correspondent finds gentle escape in the French Chanson
By John Shakespeare Dyson | April 1, 2020
Mélodies: Debussy in Pamphylia, Fauré in Isfahan, Reynaldo Hahn in Istanbul. This new series of blogs is designed to provide a welcome distraction from for those in isolation, while at the same time introducing them to music that may be new to them and will give them pleasure. It is...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
By Thomas Roueché | March 18, 2020
Marina Abramović is one of the world’s most famous living artists. Her iconic 2010 retrospective at MoMA in New York,
The Artist Is Present, is perhaps one of the best-known exhibitions of the past decade; one of very few that can be said to achieve such a level of fame....
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Contemporary Art
‘Creating the real out of the ideal’
By John Shakespeare Dyson | March 18, 2020
That the latest in the series of Istanbul Recitals was given is, in itself, remarkable considering… My companion and I boarded the boat that leaves Eminönü at ten past six and spent an hour watching the shores of the Bosphorus sweep by on a cloudy, overcast afternoon that was turning...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
By John Shakespeare Dyson | March 14, 2020
On Wednesday (March 11) I attended a concert given by the Avrasya Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Rengim Gökmen, at the Zorlu Performance Arts Center. This was part of a series entitled Vestel Gururla Yerli Konserleri, organised jointly by the Performance Arts Center and ‘BKM’, which I assume stands for ‘Beşiktaş...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
By John Shakespeare Dyson | February 29, 2020
February 20: I made my second foray into the Touché jazz club, located in the bowels of the Zorlu Center in Zincirlikuyu. The occasion was that of another concert by Gilad Atzmon, the Israeli saxophonist I'd seen in January 2019 – when he was accompanied by Sarp Maden on guitar,...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Jazz, - Musical Shares
By John Scott | February 29, 2020
This perfectly formed exhibition is a fitting tribute to the influential art historian Marcell Restle. Staged by ANAMED and the University of Vienna's Digital Research Archive for Byzantium (DiFaB) – and happily extended to April 5 – the show at ANAMED's Merkez Han on İstiklal Caddesi offers a beguiling portrait...
By John Shakespeare Dyson | February 26, 2020
The Istanbul Recitals series continued on February 14 with a concert by violinist Soyoung Yoon (photo: soyoungyoon.com) and pianist Mario Häring (photo: Stephan-Röhl) at The Seed in Emirgan. Like last month’s recital by the cellist Alexander Chaushian, this one featured a stringed instrument – though this time with piano accompaniment....
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
The Istanbul Art and Antiques Fair is back, and a good thing too
By Cornucopia Connoisseur | February 22, 2020
Back in the naughty 90s, the Istanbul antiques fair was a highlight of the Istanbul arts calendar. Çigdem Simavi's Küsav foundation served up a brilliant blend of high art and high society, most memorably in the Armoury of Yıldız Palace. It was a mix of the flash and the famous,...
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Contemporary Art, Fine Art
By Lauren | February 20, 2020
Photograph by Ara Güler There are two exciting opportunities for Turkish artists and musicians who wish to study and develop their performance and creative skills this summer. The Berklee College of Music is hosting <b>Aspire: Five-Week Music Performance Intensive</b> from 11 July to 14 August 2020. From one-on-one instruction with...
By John Shakespeare Dyson | February 5, 2020
The latest in the Istanbul Recitals series at The Seed, the concert hall attached to the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan, featured a solo cellist – quite a departure from the usual run of pianists, pianists and more pianists. Ms Nazan Ceylan, the co-organiser (with Mr Mehmet Şükûn) of these...
The superb sensitivity of Finghin Collins
By John Shakespeare Dyson | January 5, 2020
© Mateusz Zahora, courtesy Istanbul Recitals The third of the season’s Istanbul Recitals was given by the Irish pianist Finghin Collins at The Seed, the concert hall attached to the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan, on December 20, 2019. After the previous recital, I frankly did not hold out...
