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After a dream

By John Shakespeare Dyson | November 30, 2025

On Wednesday November 19 I visited a relatively new concert venue, attracted by the promise of a performance of some chansons (French art songs, otherwise known as mélodies) by Fauré, Debussy and Ravel. The event took place in a former Roman Catholic church in Yeldeğirmeni, the quarter in the Kadıköy district...
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The stuff Eroicas are made of

The quality and professionalism of another new youth orchestra leaves even our crotchety critic on a Beethoven high

By John Shakespeare Dyson | November 16, 2025

November may be a time of mounting winter darkness and incoming seasonal depression, but it has sprung at least one welcome surprise – the first public performance of the season by the ADK Istanbul Youth Orchestra, an outfit of whose existence I was previously unaware. Their concert at the Süreyya...
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Golden horns

Conductor Cem Mansur has created an annual wonder: the Turkish National Youth Philharmonic Orchestra

By John Shakespeare Dyson | October 6, 2025


The Turkish National Youth Philharmonic Orchestra held its annual Istanbul concert at the Atatürk Cultural Centre in Taksim Square on August 28. I now look forward to these events with keen anticipation as the standard of playing is always extremely high, thus promising good things for the future of Western...
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Woven Legacies

By Serra Oruç | October 1, 2025


The Woven Legacies Exhibition, held for the first time in Istanbul from 27-29 November 2025 at Metrohan, celebrated India’s rich textile heritage. Hosted in collaboration with the Consulate General of India, this gathering brought together collectors, textile enthusiasts, experts, designers and artists for conversations on India’s textile tradition and their...
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Reservations about reservations

By Andrew Finkel | September 22, 2025


Andrew Finkel Photo by Monica Fritz     Buried somewhere in my subconscious is a reader's letter that appeared in The Times magazine, the glossy Saturday supplement of the early 1990s, when I was working as the paper's Istanbul correspondent. It was prompted by a Jonathan Meades restaurant review that...
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Chucho Valdés

By John Shakespeare Dyson | September 17, 2025

Where are the songs of summer? Aye, where are they now? Well, they are stored in our memories, where they will hopefully allow us to fondly replay them in our minds as a respite from winter gloom. For me, one of the most memorable of this summer’s musical experiences was...
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Kınalıada

By John Shakespeare Dyson | September 4, 2025


Kınalıada, the smallest of the four main Princes’ Islands in the Sea of Marmara, is a place that until this summer, despite my 48-year residence in the city, I had never visited. Accordingly, when I saw in the programme for this year’s İKSV Istanbul Music Festival that a concert was...
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Strings in Love and Endless Paths

Mystical music at the İKSV Istanbul Music Festival

By John Shakespeare Dyson | July 17, 2025


It was a great privilege to be on the Fıstıklı Terrace of the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan once again, this time to listen to a concert of pieces performed on traditional Turkish and Azeri instruments. Tellerin Aşkı (‘Strings in Love’), an event that took place on June 23, was...
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Shining stars

By John Shakespeare Dyson | July 3, 2025


On June 21 I went to the Süreyya Opera House in Kadıköy for a concert – part of the 2025 İKSV Istanbul Music Festival. Entitled Female Stars of Tomorrow (Yarının Kadın Yıldızları), it showcased the talents of 13 young female musicians who have enjoyed the financial support of the Industrial...
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Glière in the limelight

Reinhold Gliere's Horn Concerto is a revelation at the CRR

By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 18, 2025


Reinhold Glière, a composer who had not previously crossed my radar, proved to be something of a discovery when the CRR Orchestra, conducted by Carlo Tenan, accompanied the Turkish horn-player Can Kiracı in his Horn Concerto in B flat major at the Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall on May 9....
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The off!

The opening concert of the 2025 Istanbul Music Festival

By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 13, 2025


Wednesday saw the opening concert of the 2025 İKSV Istanbul Music Festival, which this year, the 53rd, has taken the theme, ‘Beyond Borders’. (Photo: the Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra, by Salih Üstündağ). After the speeches, the lucky recipients of this year's awards were announced. First up was the young Turkish violinist Bade Daştan...
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Istanbul Music Festival Highlights 2025

By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 9, 2025


This year’s İKSV Istanbul Music Festival, the 53rd in the series, is scheduled to run from June 11 to 26. Organised by the  Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İstanbul Kültür Sanat Vakfı or ‘İKSV’) and centred around the theme of ‘Beyond Borders’, the 25 concerts feature more than 45...
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Remembering Ayten Alpman

By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 5, 2025


On April 18 I made my way to the Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall for a tribute event commemorating the jazz and pop singer Ayten Alpman (1930-2012) (image source: Ayten Alpman’ı anıyoruz! Kadıköy Life). Ms Alpman’s singing career began in the early 1950s, when she was encouraged to sing jazz by the...
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Putting Constantinople on the map: the great Olympia extravaganza

By Cornucopia Connoisseur | May 25, 2025


On Boxing Day 1893, 32,251 travellers descended on Constantinople, not Istanbul’s historical peninsula, but rather a colossal replica of the city, constructed under the vast glass-and-iron canopy of Olympia in West London. For a multitude unlikely to make the journey across Europe, Constantinople in London represented the real thing. Passengers...
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Beyond precocious

A tour de force from Alexander Malofeev

By John Shakespeare Dyson | May 19, 2025


On April 14 I went to the Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall to attend a recital by the young Russian pianist Alexander Malofeev. Born in 2001 and currently resident in Berlin, he first came to prominence when he won the piano category of the 8th International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young...
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Posted in Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares

Celebrating Anatolia’s astonishing flora

An exhibition that captures the plant diversity of Anatolia through botanical illustration

By Harriet Rix | May 10, 2025


A new exhibition of botanical art is arrived at Salt Beyoğlu, Istanbul on May 15 and will run to August 10, 2025, with a day of events on May 18. The exhibition (part of Botanical Art Worldwide 2025) will bring together 80 original works by 47 artists, all of which...
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The Orient restrained

The Spring Islamic Week is in full swing this week. Here are some of the highlights...

By Cornucopia Connoisseur | April 27, 2025


Both Sotheby’s and Christie’s hold Islaimic and Indian art sales this week. And Sotheby's is also holding its Orientialist Art sale plus an important single-collection sale of watercolours by David Roberts, RA. Bonhams in Bond Street holds its Islamic and Indian sale on May 23. If the mood is a...
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Seductive sonority

By John Shakespeare Dyson | April 15, 2025


On March 13 I made my way to the Notre Dame de Sion French Lycée in Harbiye for yet another musical event put on by the school. This time the performer was Denis Pascal, a pianist who is the father of Aurélien Pascal, the cellist who played İlyas Mirzayev’s Cello...
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A gem of purest ray serene

‘The Borusan Quartet’s performance was as near faultless as one has the right to expect of an assemblage of human beings’

By John Shakespeare Dyson | March 30, 2025

On February 18 I made my way to the ENKA compound on Katar Caddesi, the road that descends the hill from Maslak (north of Levent) towards İstinye (on the Bosphorus) in order to attend a concert by the Borusan String Quartet and pianist Özgür Aydın. I have to admit that...
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From misty Wales to a high Victorian salon in Istanbul

Looking back on Istanbul's spectacular harp festival

By John Shakespeare Dyson | March 11, 2025


The 2nd Ceren Necipoğlu Istanbul International Harp Festival was held from 14th to 19th January 2025 with the participation of three internationally-acclaimed lady harpists: Sioned Williams, a former principal harpist of the BBC Symphony Orchestra who is now an Honorary Research Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music; Florence Sitruk,...
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