The Vienna Symphony Orchestra & Kian Soltani in the 2026 İKSV Istanbul Music Festival finale
By John Shakespeare Dyson | September 21, 2026
And so, on June 24, the 2026 İKSV Istanbul Music Festival came to an end. Much thanks and appreciation are once again due to this marvellous organisation, which continues to bring fine feasts to Istanbul music-lovers’ tables (and I don’t mean on motorbikes). Long may it continue! The grand finale...
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By John Dyson | September 10, 2026
The third concert of the 2026 İKSV Istanbul Music Festival that I attended took place at the Atatürk Cultural Centre on June 23. It is always a pleasure to listen to the foreign orchestras who come to Istanbul to play at the Festival, and compare them with Turkey’s own outfits....
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By Yiğit Tahtalıoğlu | August 27, 2026
I thought I knew The Odyssey. I was wrong. I discovered that in a neighborhood movie theatre in Istanbul. A few days after Christopher Nolan's
The Odyssey premiered, I went to a Sunday morning screening. I chose the first showing because I've never liked crowds. It was not even an...
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Ian Bostridge, Feride Büyükdenktaş and Saskia Giorgini at the Süreyya Opera House
By John Dyson | August 20, 2026
The second concert of the 2026 İKSV Istanbul Music Festival that I attended took place at the Süreyya Opera House in Kadıköy on June 22. It featured the British tenor Ian Bostridge, the Turkish mezzo-soprano Feride Büyükdenktaş and the Georgian pianist Saskia Giorgini. The concert hall was half-empty, which I...
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By John Dyson | July 30, 2026
The first concert of the 2026 İKSV Istanbul Music Festival that I attended took place in the Atatürk Cultural Centre’s Theatre Hall on June 15. I chose this particular event because it featured the Jussen Brothers, a youthful piano duo from Holland that I knew to be top notch, and...
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By John Shakespeare Dyson | July 3, 2026
The ENKA compound on the hill leading down from Maslak towards İstinye was the scene of an inspiring Gala Concert on April 19th. The event featured performances by seven young musicians who had been identified by the jury at
ENKA Sanat (‘ENKA Arts’), and it began with a speech by...
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By John Shakespeare Dyson | June 24, 2026
On Thursday, April 2 I attended a concert at the Notre Dame de Sion French Lycée in Harbiye, Istanbul that featured the ‘Bosphorus Trio’. Founded in 2016, this ensemble consists of violinist Özgecan Günöz, cellist Çağlayan Çetin and pianist Özgür Ünaldı. Özgecan Günöz is the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra’s
konzertmeister...
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The Mardin Biennial bridges the city's fabled image with its contemporary currents
By Ayla Jean Yackley photos by Monica Fritz | June 13, 2026
From its ridge high above the Mesopotamian plain, the city of Mardin in southeastern Turkey appears suspended between Earth and sky, its honey-hued buildings mixing with bands of heat and light. This meeting between the ethereal and the earthly underpins SKYground, the seventh edition of the Mardin Biennial, that brings...
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Gülsin Onay and Louise Farrenc at the AKM
By John Dyson | May 28, 2026
On March 13 I attended a concert at the Atatürk Cultural Centre that had been organised to celebrate Women’s Day (March 8th). The previous concert I had witnessed at this venue had taken place on Friday, February 13; that month being of an even length of four weeks, the pattern...
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An Armenian Merchant Between Two Empires
By John Dyson | May 12, 2026
Philip John Nigohrus, known as Phillipo, was an Armenian merchant from the Ottoman Empire whose contributions to Anglo-Ottoman exchange in the eighteenth century have only recently been rediscovered. Long misidentified as an anonymous groom in George Stubbs’s portrait of the Duke of Ancaster’s Eastern horse, Phillipo was in fact a...
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By John Shakespeare Dyson | May 7, 2026
On Friday, February 13 I braved the inauspiciousness of the date to attend a concert at the Atatürk Cultural Centre. This event, one of the DenizBank concerts, brought together two musicians from France: Lionel Bringuier (pictured above), who would be conducting the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra, and his pianist brother...
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Vaughan Williams and Beethoven at the AKM
By John Shakespeare Dyson | March 28, 2026
The concert at the Atatürk Cultural Centre on January 16 featured a British viola-player performing a work by a British composer, so I naturally felt obliged to attend it. The
Suite for Viola and Orchestra by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) is an eight-movement work that was written between 1933 and 1934. It...
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By John Shakespeare Dyson | March 6, 2026
On December 5 I returned to the Atatürk Cultural Centre to attend another concert by the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra. This event, one of the DenizBank concerts, featured Italian guest conductor Alfonso Scarano and the Serbian-born Hungarian violinist Robert Lakatoš. Before the proceedings began, there was a recorded announcement asking...
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Four artists invite reflection on how we connect with the natural world
By Clara Robins | March 5, 2026
Işık Güner, Iris gatesii Foster (2025) Yunus Karma’s Kintsugi Moss Sculpture (2025) poised in the Şule Gazioğlu Gallery As Istanbul edges towards spring, a new exhibition at the Şule Gazioğlu Gallery draws our attention to our inner relationship with nature. Rooted: The Garden Within (26 February...
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Cornucopia in London
By Monica Fritz | January 23, 2026
A 17th-entury tapestry fragment at James Cohen Antique Carpets (LARTA 2026) Sadly, sadly, Sunday is the final day of the London Antique rug and Textile Art Fair, (open from 11am to 8pm till January 25th). If you are in London come visit our stand in this wonderful fair full of treasures....
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By John Shakespeare Dyson | January 17, 2026
On November 28 I attended a concert at the Atatürk Cultural Centre in which the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Sascha Goetzel (photograph by Özge Balkan). This event, one of the DenizBank Concerts, started off with an announcement that the first item on the programme – Debussy’s
Prélude...
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The photographs of Timurtaş Onan
By Cornucopia Connoisseur | January 10, 2026
In its latest issue,
Cornucopia published a highly personal portrait of Beyoğlu, the defiantly bohemian district of European Istanbul, with a moving tribute to its spirited history by Maureen Freely. As she writes, 'Beyoğlu, as we now call it, has always been a place apart'. Well, there is now a...
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The TRT Big Band and the magnificent Sibel Köse
By John Shakespeare Dyson | January 2, 2026
On November 26 I visited the Atatürk Cultural Centre’s Theatre Hall to hear the TRT Istanbul Radio Light Music and Jazz Orchestra – in other words, the TRT Big Band – accompany vocalist Sibel Köse in a series of rollicking jazz classics. The last time I had heard Sibel sing...
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An Indian extravaganza in Istanbul marked an emotional milestone in curator Serra Oruç's lifelong passion for textiles
By Serra Oruç | December 13, 2025
In late November an exhibition I curated opened at Metrohan (the old Gare de Pera, on İstiklal Caddesi), bringing together collectors, enthusiasts, experts and designers to celebrate India’s rich textile heritage. Why, for the first time, was Istanbul hosting this Woven Legacies Exhibition? Largely because Turkey and India, both of...
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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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