This is a classroom performance at Duke by Ferhat Tunç, bağlama, recorded and posted with his permission. Nuray Ahmed plays guitar. An English translation of the lyrics is included below.
No To War from Santa Salsera on Vimeo.
Noble mountains and plains
Burn and turn into ashes
Let not children grow up
In the midst of blood and gunpowder
Let not passions be stained by blood
Let not human beings be murdered
Mothers, mothers
Let not mothers cry
Hearts, hearts
O let not hearts cry
No to war
No to death
Let there be peace
Tomorrow
Let there be brotherhood
Tomorrow...
Enough for blood
Stand for peace
From the mountains and plains
Each soul must rush to hope
Enough for oppression
People must laugh from now on
Mothers, mothers
Let not mothers cry
Hearts, hearts
O let not hearts burn
No to war
No to death
Let there be peace
Tomorrow
Let there be brotherhood
Tomorrow...
--"No To War," lyrics and music by Ferhat Tunç
Showing posts with label Turkey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Turkey. Show all posts
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The Ferhat Files
I've learned a lot about Turkey, its politics and culture, in the last few days, hanging out with Ferhat Tunç and his entourage.
The last event on his local residency is TODAY, Wednesday (3/25) from 7-9 pm at NCSU's Stewart Theater in Raleigh. (After this, they are headed to California, then Rome, then back to Istanbul.) I hear that Ferhat and Nuray will play music at the beginning, and again at the end of this event. There will be a panel discussion in between with Louise Meintjes and Catherine Admay, the two professors responsible for bringing them to Duke.
Tuesday afternoon I visited their class, "Human Rights and The Arts." The students had a lot of great questions for Ferhat about music and politics (and might I add, that classrooms are a different place now than when I was last a student? Everyone--without exception had laptops open, typing their notes and toggling between Google maps of Turkey, Wikipedia entries and the Freemuse.org site that has lots of source material about Ferhat in English.)
After that, he met some Turkish students for coffee in Van der Heyden, the café in Duke's library; they debated the Kurdish question and possible roads toward multiculturalism in Turkey.
Later I learned from Ferhat that his instrument, the bağlama, has a long history of being associated with political protest and persecution.
Ferhat Tunç Unplugged from Santa Salsera on Vimeo.
Ferhat Tunç playing the bağlama and singing a song about Pir Sultan Abdal, a 16th-century musician who was killed by the Ottoman Empire because he would not renounce freedom. Translation at the end provided by Ömür Kayikçi.
The last event on his local residency is TODAY, Wednesday (3/25) from 7-9 pm at NCSU's Stewart Theater in Raleigh. (After this, they are headed to California, then Rome, then back to Istanbul.) I hear that Ferhat and Nuray will play music at the beginning, and again at the end of this event. There will be a panel discussion in between with Louise Meintjes and Catherine Admay, the two professors responsible for bringing them to Duke.
Tuesday afternoon I visited their class, "Human Rights and The Arts." The students had a lot of great questions for Ferhat about music and politics (and might I add, that classrooms are a different place now than when I was last a student? Everyone--without exception had laptops open, typing their notes and toggling between Google maps of Turkey, Wikipedia entries and the Freemuse.org site that has lots of source material about Ferhat in English.)
After that, he met some Turkish students for coffee in Van der Heyden, the café in Duke's library; they debated the Kurdish question and possible roads toward multiculturalism in Turkey.
Later I learned from Ferhat that his instrument, the bağlama, has a long history of being associated with political protest and persecution.
Ferhat Tunç Unplugged from Santa Salsera on Vimeo.
Ferhat Tunç playing the bağlama and singing a song about Pir Sultan Abdal, a 16th-century musician who was killed by the Ottoman Empire because he would not renounce freedom. Translation at the end provided by Ömür Kayikçi.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
The Bulgarian La Bamba
I mentioned Ferhat's sideman, Nuray, who comes from Bulgaria and is ethnically Turkish. While we didn't have a language in common, we were able to "converse" in snippets of a few Spanish cover songs he knows.
Sure enough, here is Nuray (in purple shirt, far right) singing "La Bamba" on KanalTurk TV:
Sure enough, here is Nuray (in purple shirt, far right) singing "La Bamba" on KanalTurk TV:
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Ferhat Tunç Date Added THIS AFTERNOON at Talullah's
WHAT: Ferhat Tunç, Kurdish singer from Turkey
WHEN: TODAY, Saturday (3/21), 4 p.m. - ?
WHERE: Talullah's, W. Franklin St., Chapel Hill
COST: (unknown, if any)
I saw Ferhat Tunç last night at the Duke Performances show. (Ferhat is on a short artist residency at Duke.) He played the saz or bağlama, a narrow-necked, fretted instrument which has 3 pairs of double-coursed strings. An extra bass string on this particular saz, for added depth, made for a total of seven tuning pegs. He sings with a particular, rather rapid, full-throated vibrato; at times it helped to just close my eyes and listen. I don't know what kind of scales or modes this music employs, but in my "Western" terms it sounded like minor keys exclusively--nothing I would characterize as a major mode--and occasionally micotonal, but not as much as the Arab music we heard recently. I picked up some unusual meters (9/8, maybe? what was that?) and one of Tunç's original tunes I thought could be happily repurposed into prog rock. A few of us thought he looked like Billy Bragg up there on stage, in jeans and a flannel shirt.
Tunç (pronounced "Too-nch") had just one musician with him (which is a shame, listening to the videos, would have liked to hear a whole band to get a better feel for this music): Bulgarian/Turkish classical guitarist Nuray Ahmed. Nuray was the one who explained the saz' workings to me, with the help of a very kind UNC student who translated for us. The owner of Tallulah's was at the concert last night, and they set up this impromptu concert for this afternoon at 4. Not sure if they will charge admission or not, but this is a nice chance to hear him if you missed the Duke show. He performed a lot of Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian songs, and through translator Firat Oruc, provided some context for the political and cultural contest.
See also, panel discussion on Monday (3/23):
Roger Lucey performs Monday night at 7:30 pm in the Nelson Music Room, Duke East Campus in the East Duke Building. He is a South African musician whose career was suppressed by security police in the '70s and '80s. This concert is a fundraiser for Freemuse.org, a Danish organization promoting free speech and human rights for musicians.
WHEN: TODAY, Saturday (3/21), 4 p.m. - ?
WHERE: Talullah's, W. Franklin St., Chapel Hill
COST: (unknown, if any)
I saw Ferhat Tunç last night at the Duke Performances show. (Ferhat is on a short artist residency at Duke.) He played the saz or bağlama, a narrow-necked, fretted instrument which has 3 pairs of double-coursed strings. An extra bass string on this particular saz, for added depth, made for a total of seven tuning pegs. He sings with a particular, rather rapid, full-throated vibrato; at times it helped to just close my eyes and listen. I don't know what kind of scales or modes this music employs, but in my "Western" terms it sounded like minor keys exclusively--nothing I would characterize as a major mode--and occasionally micotonal, but not as much as the Arab music we heard recently. I picked up some unusual meters (9/8, maybe? what was that?) and one of Tunç's original tunes I thought could be happily repurposed into prog rock. A few of us thought he looked like Billy Bragg up there on stage, in jeans and a flannel shirt.
Tunç (pronounced "Too-nch") had just one musician with him (which is a shame, listening to the videos, would have liked to hear a whole band to get a better feel for this music): Bulgarian/Turkish classical guitarist Nuray Ahmed. Nuray was the one who explained the saz' workings to me, with the help of a very kind UNC student who translated for us. The owner of Tallulah's was at the concert last night, and they set up this impromptu concert for this afternoon at 4. Not sure if they will charge admission or not, but this is a nice chance to hear him if you missed the Duke show. He performed a lot of Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian songs, and through translator Firat Oruc, provided some context for the political and cultural contest.
See also, panel discussion on Monday (3/23):
Roger Lucey performs Monday night at 7:30 pm in the Nelson Music Room, Duke East Campus in the East Duke Building. He is a South African musician whose career was suppressed by security police in the '70s and '80s. This concert is a fundraiser for Freemuse.org, a Danish organization promoting free speech and human rights for musicians.
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