In this tribute concert to the Turkish composer Cemal Reşit Rey (1904-85), after whom the concert hall is named, the CRR Symphony Orchestra will play a selection of pieces from the operettas he wrote during the years 1932-41, including parts of Üç Saat and Lüküs Hayat, his most famous works. The programme on November 29 will be an exact replica of that for a concert given in the Open-Air Theatre in Harbiye on September 4, 1948.
Cemal Reşit Rey’s musical talent was discovered by the celebrated composer Gabriel Fauré (then Director of the Paris Conservatoire) while the Rey family were living in Paris during the years 1913-14. On Fauré’s recommendation, Cemal Reşit received piano lessons – completely free of charge – from the famous pedagogue Marguerite Long. Later, in 1920, he returned to Paris and continued his lessons with Ms Long, meanwhile receiving instruction in composition and instrumentation from Raoul Laparra, in musical aesthetics from Gabriel Fauré, and in conducting from Henri Defosse. After his return to Turkey in 1921, he taught at the Darülelhan, the school of music which later became the Istanbul Municipal Conservatoire. He also founded and conducted an ensemble that subsequently grew into the ‘Istanbul City Orchestra’, an outfit that continued to give weekly concerts until 1968.
The concert will be preceded (at 18:30) by a talk by musicologists Evrim Hikmet Öğüt and Sungu Okan on the organisation and digitalisation of the Cemal Reşit Rey Archive, which contains original manuscripts of the composer’s works, as well as his notebooks.
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
