Category: Turkey

BÜYÜKADA ENSEMBLE RELEASES FIRST RECORDINGS FROM SEPTEMBER 2020 LIVE BROADCAST - WARLOCK CAPRIOL SUITE ON 18 DECEMBER 2020 AND DEBUSSY DANSE SACREE ET DANSE PROFANE ON 12 MARCH 2021

13/12/2020

Click above to download on iTunes

The Büyükada Ensemble releases its first recording, made from its IBB TV live broadcast in September 2020, with Warlock's Capriol Suite, on 18 December. Comprising members of the Turkish National Youth Philharmonic Orchestra and musicians from the UK and Germany, the Ensemble's recording is conducted by James Ross.

Download the recording on iTunes at https://music.apple.com/album/warlock-capriol-suite-ep/1542085175

The Büyükada Ensemble's live broadcast was supported by the European Union Delegation to Turkey, Adalar Municipality and Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

STREAMING LINKS
Amazon Music
Idagio
Deezer
Qobuz
YouTube

Further recordings from the live broadcast, including Saygun Allegretto from the Solo 'Cello Partita with Lale Efendiev and Schoenberg, Verklärte Nacht, will be released during 2021.

Recording Engineer: Kıvılcım Konca
Mastering and Post-Production: John Croft - Chiaro Audio
UPC 5054526832473 (Warlock)
UPC 5056495392750 (Debussy)

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BÜYÜKADA ENSEMBLE İSTANBUL CONCERT: WARLOCK - DEBUSSY - SAYGUN - SCHOENBERG: SATURDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 2020

9/9/2020

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LIVE BROADCAST ON YOUTUBE
https://youtu.be/mWMkZRSVvko

After last year's sold-out Büyükada Ensemble concert for Istanbul Biennial, its musicians, from the Turkish National Youth Philharmonic Orchestra / Türkiye Gençlik Filarmoni Orkestrası, London's Royal College of Music and Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, returned to perform a live-streamed concert from San Pacifico Church, Büyükada, Istanbul, conducted by James Ross, and recorded for broadcast by TRT3:

Warlock, Capriol Suite
Debussy, Danse sacrée et danse profane
(Yonca Atar, harp)
Saygun, Allegretto: Partita for Solo 'Cello
(Lale Efendiev 'cello)
Schoenberg, Verklärte Nacht

LIVE STREAMING LINK:
https://youtu.be/mWMkZRSVvko

The concert took place during European Mobility Week, and is supported by Delegation of the European Union in Turkey, Adalar Belediyesii and İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi, in partnership with Ulysses Arts.

The performance lasted 75 minutes including pre-recorded messages from the EU Ambassador to Turkey and Adalar Municipality Mayor, and was watched one more than 20,000 separate devices worldwide. The performances are being released digitally by Ulysses Arts, starting with Warlock Capriol Suite on 18 December 2020 and Debussy, Danse sacrée et danse profane on 12 March 2021, on all main streaming services.

Download Warlock Capriol Suite on iTunes

Releasing on 12 March 2021. Click above to pre-order on iTunes, with digital booklet in English and Turkish

Stream Warlock Capriol Suite and Debussy, Danse sacrée et danse profane on Spotify

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Two Concerts in Istanbul: Young Musicians Demonstrate Excellence and Community

8/9/2017

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Turkish National Youth Philharmonic Orchestra / Cem Mansur, Zorlu Centre, 25 August, and Music Foundation for Peace, Heybeliada, 27 August 2017

Turkey has a distinguished tradition of orchestral music, dating back to Guiseppe Donizetti, brother of the famous opera composer, in Ottoman times, but still too rarely does it receive international attention. Two remarkable concerts in late August in Istanbul proved the growing richness of the country’s orchestral life, and the enterprise, energy and vision of its musical leaders to give young people the best possible opportunities to perform. The first, played to a full house at the Zorlu Centre for the Performing Arts, proved the Turkish National Youth Philharmonic Orchestra’s quality; the second, on Heybeliada, brought together young musicians from across Istanbul, organised by the Music Foundation for Peace.

The TNYPO’s concert, conducted by its music director Cem Mansur, opened with Richard Strauss’ Don Juan – a test of individual and collective technique, responsiveness, flexibility and daring. To start a concert with this great tone poem makes a declaration of intent – and multiple opportunities for failure. Its opening requires a large dose of self-believe and mutual trust between orchestra and conductor: TNYPO and Mansur jumped in head first, made light work of all its difficulties, and gave a surging, sweeping performance, sustained into the empty darkness of its ending. The marathon concert, which would have tested even an experienced professional orchestra, also included Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with soloist and TNYPO alumna Hande Küden; Turkish music was represented by Ali Özkan Manav’s magnificent rhapsody on Ali Ekber Çiçek’s song Haydar Haydar, receiving its first performance. There was no hint of ‘cross-over’, amorphous ‘world music’ or contrived tokenism here, rather the song was transformed into a dazzlingly virtuosic modern orchestral showcase.

Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia, evokes, in the composer’s own words, ‘the silence of the monotonous steppes’ in which ‘a peaceful Russian song is heard’, then ‘from the distance, the melancholy notes of an Oriental melody’, before ‘the Russian and Asiatic melodies join in a common harmony’. Borodin’s father was Georgian prince and his mother was Russian: beyond the music’s hypnotic beauty, its symbolism, performed at the meeting point of Europe and Asia, could not have been stronger.

Dvořák’s Symphonic Variations is a symphony in miniature: full of contrasting but thematically related episodes wrapped into one concentrated movement. After Haydar, Haydar’s energy burst and Borodin’s static serenity, anything but the finest playing could have felt anti-climactic: instead, Mansur led the Orchestra in an account of assured conviction and elegant panache. This was the concert’s ‘official’ end, but then came Verdi’s overture to La forza del destino – probably the most substantial concert ‘encore’ you will experience – and finally the exuberant Farandole from Bizet’s L'Arlésienne Suite No.2. A concert programme that in lesser hands could have been a reckless test of endurance proved a triumph.

Before the concert, Mansur and the musicians gave a lucid exhibition of how an orchestra functions as a ‘Laboratory of Democracy’. It showed how orchestra members must go beyond individual playing technique to tackle the fundamental challenge for an orchestra: constantly to listen, anticipate and respond to one another. The conductor acts as a conduit, offering leadership but also helping the musicians to listen intently to their colleagues. For long stretches of music, a good orchestra is capable of playing on its own, but at crucial moments direction is essential. Without the conductor, leadership from another musician – most often the principal violinist – emerges spontaneously. Mansur showed how an orchestra’s success and relationship with its conductor could be presented as a microcosm of human society. It offers an instant demonstration of human interaction, demanding a deep combination of individual excellence, respect for others, flexibility and sense of mutual responsibility to function harmoniously.

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Two days later, Heybeliada was the setting for a very different concert by young Turkish musicians. The Music for Peace Foundation, in collaboration with the Princes Islands Council under its president Sinan Özbek, presented a concert in the tranquil grounds of the historic Ruhban School, which crowns Heybeli’s highest peak. Three instrumental ensembles with over 100 musicians and chorus joined forces under the direction of three young charismatic South American volunteer conductors for a heartfelt joyous evening of music.

The Music Foundation for Peace, founded in 2005 and part of the international El Sistema network, is based in Istanbul’s Edirnekapı district, offering free music education for children and young people with limited opportunities. It has now developed parallel projects on the Princes Islands, Bursa and Izmir, with support from the Istanbul Culture and Arts Foundation.

The concert included arrangements of classical works and Latin music, which played to the conductors’ strengths. Starting with the most experienced musicians, ever increasing numbers of children joined the ensemble as the night progressed. All performed with conviction, rhythmic energy, standing confidently for solos, and with much exuberant clapping and twirling of instruments to the audience’s delight, including numerous parents taking justified pride in their children’s achievement. Towards the end, a choir joined for a short excerpt from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Even in simplified form, the music and its timeless message of common humanity shone through: at the concert’s end, my neighbour and I both admitted afterwards to being profoundly moved.

These outstanding concerts were a demonstration of musical excellence, social enterprise and community. In their contrasting ways, they proved without a single word being uttered, how orchestras bring together people from different places and backgrounds in a shared endeavour where for success and harmony, the only option is an openness to listen to one other and a spirit of collaboration.

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BÜYÜKADA ENSEMBLE RELEASES FIRST RECORDINGS FROM SEPTEMBER 2020 LIVE BROADCAST - WARLOCK CAPRIOL SUITE ON 18 DECEMBER 2020 AND DEBUSSY DANSE SACREE ET DANSE PROFANE ON 12 MARCH 2021

BÜYÜKADA ENSEMBLE İSTANBUL CONCERT: WARLOCK - DEBUSSY - SAYGUN - SCHOENBERG: SATURDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 2020

Two Concerts in Istanbul: Young Musicians Demonstrate Excellence and Community

UA Press Centre

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