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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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 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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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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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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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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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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Music & Performing Arts, - Classical Music, - Musical Shares
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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 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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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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‘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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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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By John Shakespeare Dyson | February 14, 2025
On January 11 2025 I attended a Coffee Concert at the Atatürk Cultural Centre in Taksim. These concerts take place on Saturday mornings in the downstairs foyer – where concertgoers go for refreshments. Fortunately, the space on this floor of the AKM is big enough to accommodate a stage and...
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By Alexandra de Cramer | February 10, 2025
Öktem Aykut Gallery
Toygun Özdemir Unforced Errors, Coincidences and Lost Years January 10, 2025 – February 08, 2025
Unforced Errors, Coincidences and Lost Years marked Toygun Özdemir’s fifth solo exhibition at Öktem Aykut Gallery, featuring a carefully curated collection of 22 works created over the past three years. This series...
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Barbarossa's 1540s baths – the Cinili Hamam in Istanbul's Zeyrek district – opens with a flourish
By Alexandra de Cramer photography by Monica Fritz | February 1, 2025
This tile panel was originally located in the men’s hot room. The eight rectangular tiles are adorned with Persian couplets in nasta‘līq
script from a poem highlighting the hamam's significance in Ottoman literary tradition. Poets such as Nâbî, Fuzulî and Nedîm were all inspired by the vibrant social and aesthetic...
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Hungarian Jazz at the Naval Museum
By John Shakespeare Dyson | January 28, 2025
On December 15 I attended a jazz concert by Hungarian musicians at the Beşiktaş Naval Museum. The performers were the pianist and song-writer Peter Sárik (the group’s leader), double-bass player Tibor Fonay and drummer Attila Galfi, the trio’s speciality being jazzed-up versions of classical pieces. Actually, that isn’t quite as...
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Esra Özdoğan's The Ghost in the Machine at Galeri Nev
By Alexandra de Cramer | January 8, 2025
Esra Özdoğan's solo exhibition,
The Ghost in the Machine, curated by Çağla Özbek, invites viewers into a world where the boundaries between life, death and illusion are constantly shifting. The title, drawn from the British philosopher Gilbert Ryle’s concept of the 'ghost' inhabiting the 'machine' of the body, offers a framework...
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By Alexandra de Cramer | January 8, 2025
‘making paste from rain/you may ask - how?/to dream long enough/for fermentation’ These lines, part of a poem by the multidisciplinary artist Sine İçli, are positioned in the lower-left corner of the opening wall – an ode to clay and its transformative process. This poem introduces İçli’s first solo exhibition...
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Beyoğlu bids farewell to another fine art gallery
By Alexandra de Cramer | January 7, 2025
Archive signifies the closing of a chapter for Versus Art Project as they bid farewell to their iconic white cube gallery in Istanbul—a space distinguished by its apartment-like layout, soaring ceilings and exposed moldings. For 12 years, the gallery has occupied Hanif Han, an exceptional example of Istanbul’s Art Nouveau...
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By Alexandra de Cramer | January 1, 2025
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The Istanbul-born Armenian conceptual artist Sarkis’s fifth solo exhibition,
Children’s Rain Call with the Colours of the Rainbow, offers a playful exploration of collective healing. Inspired by workshops he led with children at the Venice and Mardin Biennales, the exhibition invites viewers to engage with the universal experience of rain,...
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