Looking ahead to IKSV's summer feast of classical music
By John Shakespeare Dyson | May 20, 2023
Summer is here again (or so they tell me), and the İKSV Istanbul Music Festival is once again rearing its beautiful head. Here is a brief guide to what’s on offer. The proceedings kick off with an Opening Concert at the Atatürk Cultural Centre on Thursday 1st June at 20:00...
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By John Shakespeare Dyson | May 10, 2023
On April 27 I attended a concert of chamber music at the Naval Museum in Beşiktaş. This event was part of a music festival organised by an outfit that goes by the name of ‘Opus Amadeus’ in conjunction with Artisan Organizasyon. I believe they hold a festival of chamber music...
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By John Shakespeare Dyson | April 30, 2023
On Thursday, April 20, I attended another concert at the Zorlu Center in Zincirlikuyu; this time, the works being performed were
La tragédie de Salomé by the French composer Florent Schmitt, and Anton Bruckner’s
Fourth Symphony, the ‘Romantic’. The orchestra was once again the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic, and on this...
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The sheer artistry of Sibel Köse and friends throws doom-and-gloom to the winds
By John Shakespeare Dyson | January 30, 2023
Last Saturday I went to the Nardis Jazz Club in Galata to listen to the Turkish jazz singer Sibel Köse and her quartet. Having fortified ourselves with scrumptuous cakes at Şirin Fırın, a highly-recommended patisserie in nearby Büyük Hendek Caddesi, my companion and I wended our way through the crowds...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Jazz, - Musical Shares
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...
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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...
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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...
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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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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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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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By John Shakespeare Dyson | October 29, 2020
The online streaming of the İKSV Jazz Festival concerts is due to finish on November 3. You have been warned! The tap is about to run dry, so now is the time to catch up on what you have been missing at online.iksv.org.https://online.iksv.org/caz Selecting a concert at random from the...
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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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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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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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