First a daughter and a sister, then a wife, a mother, a princess and a painter externalising her talent… This major Tate Modern exhibition takes you into the world of a 20th century artist lost to history, whose life was as colourful as her art. Describing a self-portrait from 1980 Fahrelnissa Zeid observed: “I […]
Aylin Bozok’s adaptation of Samson and Delilah takes centre stage at this year’s Grimeborn season at the award-winning Arcola Theatre in East London. Dalston’s Grimeborn Festival is back for its eleventh year, presenting brand new alternative pieces to classical opera and I finally had the chance to visit one of this year’s programmes: a remarkable […]
It’s only taken 19 years for me to see İlhan Erşahin live. I discovered him by chance while living in Istanbul in the late 90s, after picking up a copy of his Wax Poetic Three album in 1998 from a record store in Beyoğlu. His music was by far the coolest thing I’d heard […]
A new musical stage adaptation of Bliss or Mutluluk, a novel of the same name originally written by the politician, singer and artist Zülfü Livaneli, played at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston, East London last week. A joint production with Istanbul’s experimental theatre Talimhane, this was an outstanding, emotive and powerful performance. This UK run […]
After her critically-acclaimed 2013 debut release Mortissa¸ Çiğdem returns with an inspired follow-up. Her musical cue is again Rebetiko – the shared cultural heritage of Turkey and Greece in the 1920s – but Çiğdem spreads her musical wings in A Thousand Cranes, travelling from Istanbul and Izmir to Greece, the Balkans, and eastern Turkey picking […]
Gaye Su Akyol’s second album takes you to places that no current Turkish artist has done before. It’s not just the diversity of sounds that you find on Hologram İmparatorluğu that makes it so unique, but how she has beautifully melded Turkish classical music, Anadolu pop, surf music, dub, punk and psychedelic rock on individual […]
