Andrew Finkel pays tribute to the mesmerising Robert Chenciner, a maverick scholar and fond friend, who has died in London
By Andrew Finkel | November 8, 2021
In medias res, the curtain rising on the action in full flow, might seem an odd eulogy to recite over the memory of a dear friend, but Robert Chenciner was someone in perpetual motion and even now it is hard to think of him as being still. Think Christopher Lloyd’s...
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Obituaries
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London Islamic Sales Week October 2021
By Cornucopia Connoisseur | October 25, 2021
This week is Islamic Sales Week in London, with wonderful curiosities being auctioned at Sotheby’s, Bonhams and Christie’s. Lots 213 and 214 in the Sotheby’s Arts of the Islamic World & India on October 27 were created for a truly enchanted world. It was an age when two Turkish-speaking dynasties, the Ottomans...
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Fine Art
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Wind in their sales: Contemporary Istanbul is back
By Monica Fritz | October 11, 2021
We came back from the Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair yesterday feeling tired and pleased, having spent a week immersed in art, hearing stories and new proposals, making new friends and meeting many new subscribers, seeing old friends and lots of catching up. It was great to feel Istanbul alive again...
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By Cornucopia Connoisseur | October 10, 2021
The last day of Contemporary Istanbul. Don't miss it. And do get there as soon as you read this, so that you can grab coffee and a bail of straw by the water, the Golden Horn's smartest ringside pew. You will find Cornucopia in the entrance hall, under the Ayşe...
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Quartet Muartet ten years on
By John Shakespeare Dyson | October 7, 2021
One warm evening in September, four of Turkey’s most talented jazzmen – people who had not played together for over ten years – had a musical reunion that I was privileged to attend (Above: Quartet Muartet 10 years on: from left, Sarp Maden, Genco Arı, Alp Ersönmez, Volkan Öktem). The...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Musical Shares
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Mahallah Festival now on till Sept.26th
By Monica Fritz | September 17, 2021
This eclectic Arts Festival is in it's last days and is a must! The Mahallah Festival is stunningly organised and curated by Sabine Küper-Büsch and Thomas Büsch of the Diyalog Derneği Istanbul and partly sponsored by the German Consulate of Istanbul and the Austrian Ministry of Culture. The phenomena Murmuration,...
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Bliss under the pines: the Istanbul Music Festival is back and our music critic indulged in his first live concert of the year
By John Shakespeare Dyson | August 27, 2021
On Wednesday August 25 I went to Emirgan for a concert on the ‘Fıstıklı Teras’ (Pine Tree Terrace) of the Sakıp Sabancı Museum. It was a balmy summer evening and outside the Atlı Köşk – the main building of the complex, approached via a wide marble stairway – there was...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
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Little Amal, a young refugee, embarks on a remarkable journey
By Claire McIntosh | August 8, 2021
Seeing a 3.5 meter tall puppet of a little girl, making her way down the street, or out of the window of a car on the way to work, would certainly turn heads. Thus is the goal of Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson. Created by the minds of the Good...
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Exhibitions, Fundraiser, Good causes, Highlights Turkey, Highlights Around The World
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The abstract world of Etel Adnan, whose show at the Pera Museum ends this week
By Thomas Roueché | August 2, 2021
This week marks the last opportunity to catch
Impossible Homecoming, a show of the work by the artist and writer Etel Adnan at the Pera Museum. Adnan’s work, shown here for the first time at a major institution in Istanbul, are abstract landscapes that confront memory through the powerful use...
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A recent edition by Izzet Keribar
By Monica Fritz | July 27, 2021
The National Geographic and award winner photographer Izzet Karibar has released his latest tribute to Istanbul, poetically documenting the city as it was before these last decades of great change.
Iki Istanbul is a playful glance at an Istanbul that hardly exists anymore. Karibar opens a door into his vast...
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The Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic conducted by Garrett Keast
By John Shakespeare Dyson | July 23, 2021
This is festival week at Borusan, and a large number of concerts by the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, plus three performances by the Borusan Quartet, have appeared on their website. To access the concerts you will need to sign in to borusansanat.tv. You are advised to make haste and listen...
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An unmissable performance of Pēteris Vasks and Fazıl Say by the Borusan Quartet – watch it while you can
By John Shakespeare Dyson | July 5, 2021
On June 27, a concert by the Borusan Quartet that had been recorded on March 31 was put online. In the interests of speed, I will review this concert only briefly, as any delay in getting my piece to the readers of Cornucopia may result in disappointment: the recording may...
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By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 28, 2021
A concert by players from the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, recorded on April 8, was streamed online on June 13. Conducted by Cem Mansur, they played works with a retro flavour by Ligeti, Respighi and Stravinsky. I, in my naiveté, believed that it would be possible to access the concert...
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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
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‘From the mind of young Churchill a cunning new plan… ’ – two Scottish singers reflect on their home town’s darkest day
By Cornucopia | June 6, 2021
Much is written about the terrible Anzac losses at Gallipoli, where, as William Guerney wrote in Cornucopia 20, Australia and New Zealand ‘forged new national identies independent of the mother country'. For Turkey, the horror is beyond words… But thousands of towns around the world were shattered by Churchill’s...
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Emre Hüner and his Cratered Glazes at Arter
By Thomas Roueché | June 6, 2021
The artist Emre Hüner began working on his show at Arter
[ELEKTROİZOLASYON]: Exo-Settlement Recorded on Cratered Glazes in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, and when the museum itself was not yet completed. His practice began with small, exquisitely produced works on paper, but once confronted by the vast space Arter’s...
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Jazz pianists Cenk Esen and his father, Aydın Esen, join forces
By John Shakespeare Dyson | May 27, 2021
On Friday July 5, 2019, as long-time readers of this blog may remember, I attended a concert at the UNIQ concert hall in which USA-based Turkish jazz pianist Aydın Esen performed with a singer whom he referred to as Randy K (she is in fact his wife), drummer Tommy Campbell,...
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with comments by Marco A. Livadiotti
By Monica Fritz | May 25, 2021
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Nestled in the back streets of Sanaa's Turkish quarter is Marco Livadiotti's stunning home, a homage to Yemen's beauty by an Italian aesthetic. Hard to believe almost 30 years have passed since I've been there. I was advised by friends to go straight to the rooftop on arrival. In those...
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How Gürbüz Doğan Ekşioğlu amazingly catches the New York zeitgeist once again
By Andrew Finkel | May 21, 2021
‘423 Days After Shutdown, New York Takes Big Step Toward Full Reopening’, was the headline in
The New York Times, but there was no need to read the article. I had already understood the relief of finally being able to mingle with family and friends in the millisecond it took...
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By Monica Fritz | May 1, 2021
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To mark the Orthodox Easter, which falls this weekend – a full month after the Western churches celebrated the day, and a week after that spectacular pink full moon – I would like to share some images of two of Istanbul’s lesser-known Orthodox landmarks, two treasures well worth the hunt....
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F Dilek Uyar wins the 2021 Pink Lady ‘Bring Home the Harvest’ Photographer of the Year Award
By Berrin Torolsan | May 1, 2021
This year the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year Awards in the UK attracted no fewer than 10,500 photographers from 70 different countries the world over. The winner of the Bring Home the Harvest category was this stunning image,
Drying Okra, by the Turkish photographer Fikret Dilek Uyar. A...
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