Department of Music | Stanford University
presents
Listening to Istanbul
Seda Röder, piano
CCRMA Stage | Saturday, April 30, 2011, 8:00 pm PROGRAM
Tolga Tüzün: Permanence
Zeynep Gedizlioglu: Along the Wall
Turgut Erçetin: Drifting through the Echoes of Time
-Intermission-
Murat Yakın: Lacrymae
Tolga Yayalar: In the Temporal Gardens
Özkan Manav: Movement VI
http://www.newmusicistanbul.com
http://www.sedaroeder.com
Please turn off all your electronic devices. PROGRAM NOTES
Listening to Istanbul
“I am listening to Istanbul, intent, with my eyes closed.” So began Orhan Veli, the great Turkish poet of the 20th century his most celebrated poem about Istanbul. What Veli heard more than half a century ago was a romanticized soundscape of the oriental city on the Bosphorus: the bells of water carriers, the busy sounds of the Grand Bazaar, pigeons in the yard of a mosque, and fishing nets drawn out of the sea.
Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, the acclaimed Turkish pianist Seda Röder listens to Istanbul once more; intently, with open ears and eyes for an emerging new era. What she hears in 2010 while the city bears the title of the “Cultural Capital of Europe,” are captivating and exciting sounds of a new generation of Turkish composers. Filled with energy and innovative force, their music represents the vivid and quickly changing atmosphere that the melting pot of Turkey radiates into the world. Listening to Istanbul: an Encounter with Turkish Contemporary Music, initiated and performed by Seda Röder, brings together six of Turkey’s most gifted composers, each in their way deeply affected by Istanbul’s multi-cultural arts scene.
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The melodic material of Tolga Tüzün’s composition Permanence is based on the spectral analysis of a chant melody sung by a Syriac monk from Anatolia. This melodic material appears in countless permutations and gives the piece its profound spiritual character. Permanence is a composition in open form: before each performance the order and the choice of melodies is determined randomly by the performer. These randomly selected musical phrases are then interspersed with improvisations on simple musical gestures that are played inside the piano.
Tolga Tüzün studied with Pieter Snapper and Marc Wingate at the Istanbul Technical University Center for Advanced Studies in Music (MIAM), with Tristan Murail at Columbia University, with David Olan at CUNY, and with Philippe Leroux in Paris, where he also participated in the composition and computer music course at IRCAM in 2005. His compositions received critically acclaimed performances throughout Europe, Turkey and the US. Currently, Tolga Tüzün serves as the Chair of the Music Department at Bilgi University in Istanbul.
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Zeynep Gedizlioğlu’s composition Along The Wall makes reference to Istanbul’s famed ancient city walls. Beyond this concrete reference, the piece also thematizes the invisible walls that a megacity’s hectic pace imposes on its inhabitants. The confinement of personal identity within these walls and the constant bustle of urban life are demonstrated by the ferocious virtuosity of the composition that aims to bring the performer to her physical limits.
Zeynep Gedizlioğlu completed her studies in composition at Mimar Sinan University before continuing with Theo Brandmüller in Saarbrücken, Ivan Fedele in Strasbourg, and with Wolfgang Rihm in Karlsruhe. Her works have been performed throughout Europe and Turkey by renowned groups such as the Ensemble Recherche, Accroche Note and the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain at festivals such as Musica Strasbourg, the ISCM World New Music Days, as well as the MITO Settembre Musica. In 2007 she was commissioned by the Arditti String Quartet, and in 2010 Germany’s SWR Radio dedicated two portrait concerts to her work. Currently, she is in residence at the electro-acoustic music research center IRCAM in Paris.
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Inspired by post-spectral as well as computer-aided music Turgut Erçetin introduces a wide range of sonic novelties into his first solo piano piece Drifting through the Layers of Time. These sounds are produced by alternative playing techniques, such as plucking the strings of the piano, whistling into the piano, as well as by a small device called E-Bow that creates long resonances when brought into close proximity with a piano string. The piece explores the tranquil flow of time and contains excerpts from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke (Mein Leben ist nicht diese steile Stunde) that sets the mesmerizing and serene tone of the entire work.
The youngest contributor of Listening to Istanbul, Turgut Erçetin studied composition and music theory with Pieter Snapper, Kamran İnce, and Michael Ellison at the Istanbul Technical University Center for Advanced Studies in Music (MIAM). Despite his young age, Turgut’s music has been performed widely in Turkey, the US and Europe. Currently, Turgut Erçetin studies composition with Brian Ferneyhough at Stanford University, with additional focus on computer music at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA).
Ich bin die Ruhe zwischen zweien Tönen, die sich nur schlecht aneinander gewöhnen: denn der Ton Tod will sich erhöhn -
Aber im dunklen Intervall versöhnen sich beide zitternd.
Und das Lied bleibt schön.
I am the silence between two notes that only with difficulty grow used to one another: for the note of death also wishes to be heard -
But in the dark interval they reconcile with one another, trembling.
And the song remains beautiful.
Excerpt from “Mein Leben ist nicht diese steile Stunde”, Das Stundenbuch (1899) by Rainer Maria Rilke.
* * *
Lacrymae (Trans: Tears) by Murat Yakın is a composition for piano and live-electronics that evokes a melancholic sound world, full of sonic surprises and mysteries. The novel sounds heard in this piece result from electro-acoustic treatments of the live performance, and from the use of alternative playing techniques inside the instrument. These alternative techniques include plucking and hitting the strings as well as bowing the piano with a fishing line.
A graduate of the Istanbul Technical University Center for Advanced Studies in Music (MIAM) and the University of Memphis, Murat Yakın has worked with Pieter Snapper, Reuben De Lautour, Hasan Uçarsu and Kamran İnce. His music has been performed at many leading contemporary music festivals, such as the New Music Concerts in South Africa, the Ctrl-Alt-Del and Divertimento music festivals in Istanbul, and the New Sound Concert Series in the US. Currently, Murat is on the faculty of composition at Başkent University in Ankara.
* * *
Tolga Yayalar’s piano piece In the Temporal Gardens is inspired by the temporal aspects of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s poetry, which frequently meditates on the objective and subjective perceptions of time. In this piece, Yayalar explores the temporal qualities of different musical elements: while the aggressive staccato notes played in strict rhythms stand for objective time, the resonances that arise from those—and cannot be controlled rhythmically—symbolize subjective time. The entire work consists of these different temporal layers, which seem to be involved in a furious battle that resolves only towards the end of the piece.
Prior to obtaining a PhD in composition from Harvard University, Tolga Yayalar studied Jazz at the Berklee College of Music. His compositions have garnered numerous distinctions, including the Donald Aird Memorial prize, the Adelbert Sprague composition prize, the League of Composers/ISCM composition award, the George Arthur Knight Prize, and the Millenium Chamber Players composition prize. Tolga is currently on the faculty of Bilkent University in Ankara.
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Özkan Manav is a composer whose music gains a vital impetus from diversity and opposition. Movement 6 is a meditative work that pays tribute to the great 19th-century Turkish composer Hacı Arif Bey. As part of a series of piano pieces each independently exploring the expressional potential of piano, and following the path opened up by a few of the earlier ones (Movement 3, 4, 5), this solo piano piece investigates means of possible interaction between new music and makamic idioms. Perhaps one of the most significant moments in Movement 6 is the dream-like middle section that makes use of a melody in the Turkish makams Uşşak, Neva, Segah and Hüzzam. The microtonal inflections of these makams that can be heard in the recording are achieved by a slight re-tuning of three high notes on the piano (b, d# and f#).
Özkan Manav is one of the most prolific composers of his generation. His music is recorded and performed extensively by major ensembles worldwide. He studied with Adnan Saygun and İlhan Usmanbaş in Turkey, and with Lukas Foss and Marjorie Merryman at Boston University where he earned his DMA. Özkan Manav’s distinctions include the Nejat Eczacıbaşı, the BMW Musica Viva, the Deutsche Welle, and the Sofia International Composition prizes. Currently, Özkan is a professor and Chair of the Composition Division at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul.
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“Making contemporary music more approachable for everyone” is the artistic vision of the Turkish pianist Seda Röder. In addition to her podcast series Blackbox about New Music, she puts this vision into realization in form of lecture recitals and coherent concert programs. Having a wide repertoire of solo and chamber music that ranges from Couperin to Stockhausen and beyond, Seda performs frequently in Turkey, Austria, Germany, and the US. Following her graduation from the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, Seda worked intensively with the world-renowned Beethoven and Brahms specialist Gerhard Oppitz at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich. In addition to her piano studies she focused on performance practice and period instruments, explored orchestral repertoires, and attended masterclasses with András Schiff, Marino Formenti and Karl-Heinz Kämmerling.
For her extraordinary artistic achievements Seda Röder was awarded several prestigious fellowships, among them grants from the Austrian Department of Education, the German Academic Exchange Program (DAAD), Alumni Foundation of the Austrian St. Georg-Kolleg Istanbul, as well as the Richard-Wagner-Scholarship in Munich. Seda is currently an Associate of the Music Department at Harvard University.
http://www.sedaroeder.com Upcoming events @ CCRMA
May 3, 2011, 8:00pm – An Evening of Visual Music with Dennis Miller. Dennis Miller, a visual music artist and scholar curates an evening of selections from Northeastern’s Visual Music Special Collection.
May 4, 2011, 5:15pm – ON Structure Duo presents ...with Red and Blue, an hour long adventure featuring new works by the New York based duo.
May 5, 2011, 7:00pm – The Eigenharp, Continuum and LinnStrument: Hands-on with three new musical instruments for the post-mechanical age.
May 9, 2011, 5:15pm – Peter Nyboer: Live Video Performance with Livid Instruments.
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