DATE AND VENUE

24 June 2008, Topkapı Palace

CONCERT INFO

ÇİMEN SEYMEN project design & director
HÜSAMETTİN KOÇAN stage & costume design
MÜFİT ÖZBEK light design
ERKAN SEVER narrator

17TH CENTURY EUROPEAN AND OTTOMAN MUSİC RESEARCH AND APPLİCATİON GROUP: LA TURCHESCHA
ÇİMEN SEYMEN soprano
FRANÇOİSE ENOCK director
CEVHER-İ MUSİKİ
TOLGA MERİÇ hanende
HAKAN CEVHER director
CHRİSTİNE GRİMALDİ choreography (baroque dances)
FERRUH ÖZDİNÇER choreography (traditional Turkish dances)

CONCERT PRORGAMME

Lasts 110’ inc. interval.

Although Ottoman court music and arts was a source of fascination for the European courts during the Baroque period, this music could only be accessed through the observations of the orientalist travelers. Europe was unaware that Polish musician Ali Ufki (born Wojciech Bobowski) was applying western staff notation to the Turkish court music under the service of the Sultan at the Topkapı Palace. For the first time, these precious manuscripts and baroque music repertoire will come together after 350 years at the Topkapı Palace. Türküs (folksongs), murabbas (quatrains) and semais (a form of Turkish classical music) from Ali Ufki’s famous manuscript Mecmua i Saz ü Söz (Books of Notes and Lyrics) will resonate with baroque canzonettas and arias while traditional Turkish dance motifs come to life with a baroque dance group and the lighting installation of the stage weaves color and dream into this show at the court.