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...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 28, 2021
A concert by players from the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, recorded on April 8, was streamed online on June 13. Conducted by Cem Mansur, they played works with a retro flavour by Ligeti, Respighi and Stravinsky. I, in my naiveté, believed that it would be possible to access the concert...
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Notes on ‘Secret Wildflower’ and Ayna Veer, the new album from Aydın Esen and friends
By John Shakespeare Dyson | April 22, 2021
It is too long since I heard USA-based Turkish jazz pianist Aydın Esen play live. I can still recall the chromatic crunchiness of his chords. At that concert in Istanbul in July 2019 (described in my blog), I watched and listened in awe as spherical baubles of meaningful melody crystallised...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Jazz
By John Shakespeare Dyson | March 21, 2021
The Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra is to give a streamed concert on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. The programme is of 20th-century works by Schönberg, Stravinsky and Ligeti, and the guest conductor will be Cem’i Can Deliorman, conductor of the Presidential Symphony Orchestra. I will, God willing, be reviewing the proceedings...
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John Shakespeare Dyson completes his series of articles on the French ‘chanson’
By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 27, 2020
With this, the sixth and final instalment in our series of articles on composers of chansons – French art songs – we conclude our exploration of the songs of Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924). In this particular blog we will be examining the songs he wrote later in his life – from...
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‘Taste, harmonic sensibility, the love of pure lines, of unexpected and colorful modulations’
By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 11, 2020
With this, the fifth instalment in our series of articles on composers who wrote
chansons – French art songs – we continue our exploration of the songs of Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924), this time covering his middle period. Previous instalments have focused on the songs of Reynaldo Hahn, Debussy’s earlier and...
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Pera’s opera house, star of Istanbul’s cultural scene, survived tempestuous rivalries before going up in smoke on June 5, 1870
By Emre Aracı | June 4, 2020
Exactly 150 years ago, on June 5, 1870, Istanbul’s Italian opera house, the Naum Theatre, burnt to the ground in the great fire of Pera which ravaged a large section of the neighbourhood from Taksim to Galatasaray, including the British Embassy. Fanned by strong winds, the theatre’s ashes were scattered...
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Architecture, Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music
By John Shakespeare Dyson | May 25, 2020
We now come to the last in our series of explorations of the works of composers of
chansons – French art songs. The purpose of the series, which has so far covered Reynaldo Hahn and Achille-Claude Debussy, is to give people something to occupy them while in isolation. This instalment...
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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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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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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
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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‘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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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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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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Nikolai Demidenko at the Istanbul Recitals
By John Shakespeare Dyson | November 24, 2019
© Marco Boggreve, Courtesy Istanbul Recitals The second of the season’s Istanbul Recitals was given last Friday by the Russian pianist Nikolai Demidenko at The Seed, in Emirgan (photograph by Natalie Lafranchi). And what a contrast to the previous performer, Valentina Lisitsa! Where Ms Lisitsa was flamboyant, Mr Demidenko was...
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By John Shakespeare Dyson | November 2, 2019
© M. Boggreve, courtesy Istanbul Recitals And so the new season gets under way in the Istanbul music scene.
Hayırlı olsun (‘May it be productive of good’ – and no broken fingers, cracked clarinets, or wrecked pianos.) 2020 is a real snorter of a year from the astrological point of...
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The Turkish Youth Philharmonic Orchestra is born again again
By John Shakespeare Dyson | July 31, 2019
The Turkish Youth Philharmonic Orchestra permformed at the Türkiye İş Bankası megatower concert hall in Levent on Sunday, July 21. The orchestra’s main sponsor is the Sabancı Foundation: the need for a sponsor resulting from the fact that the Turkish State does not support it. In spite of the refusal...
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If you ask Chick Corea, it's Aydın Esen
By John Shakespeare Dyson | July 12, 2019
There are some concerts – not many, just a few – that leave you with a feeling of euphoria, allowing you to forget everything that makes life a burden for just a few precious hours. The concert by the jazz pianist and composer Aydın Esen and his group on Friday,...
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The 2019 Istanbul Music Festival's sell-out finale
By John Shakespeare Dyson | July 5, 2019
Sunday, June 30 was the last day of this year’s İKSV Istanbul Music Festival, and the occasion was marked by a concert in which the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra and Fazıl Say performed at the Lütfi Kırdar Concert Hall. There were very few empty seats in the auditorium, though whether this...
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