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 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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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
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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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
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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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
The Istanbul Jazz Fest
By John Shakespeare Dyson | July 21, 2019
The New York-based band Snarky Puppy gave a concert at the UNIQ Open-Air Stage on Tuesday July 9. The supporting group was Shake Stew, an Austrian outfit. Whether the music was jazz-rock, or funk, or groove, is immaterial: in any case, I would not be able to tell you, for...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Jazz, - Musical Shares
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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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
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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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
With the viola legend Yuri Bashmet on the menu along with a new piece by Alexander Tchaikovsky, you’d expect the works… Hmmm
By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 30, 2019
In the second week of the İKSV Istanbul Music Festival the Moscow Soloists and viola-player Yuri Bashmet gave a concert at Hagia Eirene on Thursday, June 20. Sitting in the grassy area between this venerable Byzantine pile and the inner gate of Topkapı Palace before the concert began, I watched...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
Daniel Müller-Schott and the Tekfen Philharmonic at the Istanbul Festival
By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 19, 2019
The Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra gave its second concert of this year’s İKSV Festival in the Lütfi Kırdar Concert Hall on June 17. As with their Spring Concert on March 21, it was the day of a full moon, and once again the spacious terrace outside the building was an ideal...
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By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 18, 2019
The last in the series of Istanbul Recitals for the 2018-2019 season was given by the South Korean pianist Jeung Beum Sohn at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum’s Seed concert hall on June 14. There has been a succession of South Koreans performing in Istanbul recently. On March 21, Bomsori Kim...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
The 47th İKSV Istanbul Music Festival gets into gear
By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 16, 2019
And so we have arrived at that time of year when the lime trees are in flower, the watermelons rise to new heights of drippy deliciousness and the İKSV Istanbul Music Festival gets under way. A poem by Rimbaud celebrates the arrival of warm weather with the following couplet:
Que...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
By John Shakespeare Dyson | May 18, 2019
The Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son gave a recital of works by Chopin and Rachmaninov at the the Seed, the concert hall attached to the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan, on May 11. After last month’s recital, given by Stephen Kovacevich with a dreadful cold, it was a relief to...
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The Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra under the sensitive baton of Nikos Haliassas at the Caddebostan Cultural Centre
By John Shakespeare Dyson | May 7, 2019
On 26 April I ventured across the Bosphorus to attend a concert by the İstanbul State Symphony Orchestra at the Caddebostan Cultural Centre. It was with some trepidation that I took the Metrobus over the First Bosphorus Bridge to its terminus at Söğütlüçeşme, in the hinterland behind Kadıköy: the sight...
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By John Shakespeare Dyson | April 14, 2019
The American pianist Stephen Kovacevich gave the seventh in the series of Istanbul Recitals at The Seed in Emirgan on April 12. Seven may be a lucky number for some, but not, unfortunately, for Mr Kovacevich (the first ‘c’ in his name is pronounced as an ‘s’, by the way,...
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John Shakespeare Dyson is happily surprised by a thoroughly re-energised Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra
By John Shakespeare Dyson | April 14, 2019
Mussorgsky and Shostakovich were on the menu at a concert by the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra on April 5. It was pleasing to see the auditorium at the Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall nearly full: classical music concerts in Istanbul are getting more and more popular by the year. Standards...
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The Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra with Bomsori Kim
By John Shakespeare Dyson | March 24, 2019
The Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra gave a concert at the Lütfi Kırdar Concert Hall in Istanbul on March 21, 2019 – the day after the Spring Equinox, which happened to coincide with a full moon. The huge open space outside the concert hall, an observation platform set above the valley leading...
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By John Shakespeare Dyson | February 18, 2019
The latest in the 2018–19 series of İstanbul Recitals was given by the American pianist Andrew Tyson at the Seed, the concert hall attached to the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan, on Friday February 15. As was the case with last month’s recital, the weather was cold, wet and windy....
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Musical Shares: Gilad Atzmon, Sarp Maden and Friends play Istanbul’s newest jazz venue
By John Shakespeare Dyson | February 3, 2019
The Gilad Atzmon / Sarp Maden Quartet – with Gilad Atzmon (above) on saxophone, Sarp Maden on guitar, Ercüment Orkut on piano, Eylem Pelit on bass guitar and Derin Bayhan on drums – performed in a curtain-raising event at Istanbul's new jazz club Touché, located beside the PSM (Performance Arts...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Jazz, - Musical Shares
By John Shakespeare Dyson | January 17, 2019
After a hiatus caused by a stay in delectable Tameside for the run-up to the festive season, I am back in Istanbul. On Saturday, January 12 I braved the appalling weather (almost as cold, wet and dismal as Manchester in August) to listen to a recital by Freddy Kempf (pictured...
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