Friday, August 03, 2012
The lights dimmed and excited chatter subsided as the audience took their seats in the modern, wood-paneled, 400-person Garanti Kültür Merkezi concert hall at Boğaziçi University in trendy Bebek on Wednesday night.
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| The Armenian-Turkish Youth Symphony Orchestra performs at a hall in İstanbul on Wednesday. |
The Armenian-Turkish Youth Symphony Orchestra's one-night İstanbul performance was about to begin and it was a full house. The concert was sponsored by the university and by influential organizations like Anadolu Kültür, and was part of a music project that started in 2010, which aimed to “help the relations between the two countries,” and bring together Armenian and Turkish youths, in the words of one of the organizers, Dikran Altun.
The orchestra is made up of young musicians from Turkey and Armenia who got together 10 days beforehand to rehearse, with intense rehearsals twice a day. Conducting the orchestra was one of its creators, the well-known Cem Mansur, who also conducts such orchestras as the Turkish National Youth Symphony Orchestra. The idea for the Armenian-Turkish Youth Orchestra was first conceived in 2010. Many of its musicians have played together in the past in other orchestras, but the Armenian-Turkish Youth Symphony Orchestra is particularly special for them. Can Kehri, lead cellist who has been a part of the orchestra since its inception, says that playing in this group is a highlight of his year: “This is my second performance with them. I very much look forward to more.”
Once the house settled, the concert maestro took the stage to applause and the first note resonated through the hall as the orchestra tuned their instruments. The first piece was by late 19th-century Armenian composer Alexander Spendiaryan, featuring percussion and cymbals to evoke folk-dance rhythms and a countryside feel. Its Romantic-era melodies with an ethnic feel were an appropriate start to the concert, introducing the program splendidly. During the intermission, Özlem, a fourth year history major at Boğaziçi University, said that this first piece was her favorite so far. “The first piece was wonderful I think, because it was similar to Anatolian music with the many different instruments, and alternating percussion,” she said.
Next came Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto. The elated opening from the strings grandly made way for the piano, with Armenian soloist Ashot Khachatourian running through the keys with great emotion and dynamic range. The intertwining of orchestra and keys was mesmerizing at times, playful at others, and it was clear that the concert had the audience's utmost attention. The audience was a varied group -- many students and university faculty, but also guests from outside the university, and even what seemed like a school group of 13-14-year-olds.
Playing the pieces in the same concert brings together the audience and the musicians from the politically opposed regions, encouraging them to focus on Turkey and Armenia's common heritage and culture through music in a tangible way. In fact Kehri finds that playing in this orchestra has allowed him to form meaningful, lasting friendships with young Turks and Armenians. “We become like a family, we play football matches together, we spend time together, we play music,” he says. “When we play our music together, we see the common points in our music. I see a lot of Turkish [elements] in Armenian music, and when [the Armenian musicians] listen to Turkish music, they see some Armenian [elements], because for centuries we were together in that area. So you can't separate the cultures.”
Beethoven's 4th Symphony ended the official part of the concert. Kehri finds it meaningful that Beethoven was the composer who “connected” the Turkish and Armenian music. “He is my favorite composer, every note that I played in Beethoven, I feel like I am near God … He is perhaps the most internationally appreciated [composer].”
American exchange student Matthew at Bogazıcı University from Maryland was moved by the performance and thrilled to have been able to attend. Being a government and politics major, he said, “It's amazing how music can really bring people together whose countries don't have the best diplomatic relations.”
After the final applause the conductor Mansur took the stage again to introduce the encore describing music's role in the world: “[Music] has created such a beautiful mechanism which brilliantly controls peace. It puts away the hatred and the extreme mentality but brings together the sympathy and peace, which have always been worked towards.”
The audience was still for a moment as the final cadence from the strings resonated in the hall. It was indeed a moment of peace. Then the hall erupted with applause. Altun said about the evening: “You know music doesn't know any borders. … Because there are no diplomatic relations [between Turkey and Armenia], music and NGOs are making the relations much better between the two countries.”
The orchestra was off Thursday morning, Aug. 3, to catch an early flight to Berlin, where they will be performing in the Young Euro Classic festival.
Source: Today's Zaman
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