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Where to go for jazz in Turkey

By John Shakespeare Dyson | December 1, 2024


ISTANBUL Nardis The longest-running jazz club in Turkey is Nardis, close to the Galata Tower. Opened in 2002 by guitarist and jazz mentor Önder Focan and his wife Zuhal, who runs Jazz Dergisi (‘Jazz Magazine’), it hosts over 300 Turkish and foreign musicians every year. Concerts – of which there...
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Pure perfection

By John Shakespeare Dyson | November 25, 2024


On October 16 I made my way to the Süreyya Opera House in Kadıköy to hear the violinist Bahar Büyükgönenç and the pianist Tutu Aydınoğlu play works by Zoltán Kodály, Johannes Brahms, Manuel de Falla, Robert Schumann and Fikret Amirov. For the first time I had the privilege of sitting...
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He who kisses the joy as it flies…

Jazz pianists Aydın and Cenk Esen mesmerise at the opening of the new Rahşan Düren exhibition, ‘Verwegenheit’

By John Shakespeare Dyson | November 10, 2024


On October 15 I made my way to Beyoğlu for the opening of an exhibition of paintings by the artist Rahşan Düren entitled Verwegenheit, which I believe means ‘audacity’ or ‘boldness’ in German. I had been told that Aydın Esen, described as the best jazz pianist in the world by...
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Posted in Exhibitions, Music & Performing Arts, - Jazz

Tragedy with a twist

Zenia Duell admires a magnificent Uzbek recasting of Handel's Tamerlano

By Zenia Duell | November 9, 2024


The curtain rose to reveal an enormous sculpture of a horse’s head, equalling the height of the theatre and encased in a cube of LED-lit scaffolding. This was the opening night of Handel’s Tamerlano, presented by the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation, directed by Stefano Poda and performed at...
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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Opera

The Eternal Echo of Blue

By Alexandra de Cramer | October 22, 2024


Opening night. The triptych in the background is titled Repair/Lapis Lazuli by Ahmet Doğu İpek. Galerist kicked off the 2024-2025 art season with the exhibition Distilled From Scattered Blue, curated by Károly Aliotti, who brings a wealth of experience from his roles at Meşher and Arkas. The show features the diverse work of...
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The adventure of The Adventure: The Case of the Missing Sherlock Holmes Mystery

Join us at the Chiswick Book Festival in London on Saturday

By Andrew Finkel | September 13, 2024


I am looking forward to participating in the Chiswick Book Festival this Saturday afternoon to talk about my novel The Adventure of the Second Wife, a tale that revolves around the last great Ottoman Sultan, AbdulhamidII’s fascination with Sherlock Holmes. I will be speaking to Prof. Maureen Freely, a distinguished...
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Istanbul in the literary imagination

By Andrew Finkel | September 11, 2024


A friend once confessed the frustration of setting a story in Istanbul, a city where not even the past stands still. The place you think you should start is never the place you actually start – and umpteen drafts later you find yourself starting from somewhere different again.  And so it...
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Hidden talents

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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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares

Excellence in the cello department

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...
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Descending angels and croaking frogs

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...
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The Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, with István Várdai and Gülsin Onay

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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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares

A poetic narrative in a medieval village

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....
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...And all that jazz

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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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Jazz, - Musical Shares

Lifting the mood

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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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares

Istanbul welcomes back ICOC, the International Conference on Oriental Carpets

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...
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The Istanbul Modern celebrates Ozan Sağdıç

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...
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Gonzalo Rubalcaba

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...
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Concerts to remember: Özgür Aydın at the Cemal Reşit Rey

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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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares

Out of Place: the evocative, sublimely detached photgraphs of Monica Fritz

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,...
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Simplicity was never this complicated

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...
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