Transtraditional Istanbul
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Bristol
Department Name: School of Arts
Abstract
Our AHRC-Istanbul Development Agency Networking project Transtraditional Istanbul follows two basic, key
principles: first that society and its functioning can be positively affected through music, and second that research
demonstrated in practice creates real change.
TTI addresses key development challenges for Turkey by establishing a network with four key partners (TMDK,
MIAM, UoB and IKSV) dedicated to the preservation and development of traditional Turkish musical cultures in
danger of disappearing--namely Bozlak and women's throat songs (Bogaz Havalari) from the Teke region, and by
bringing this music into a contemporary, urban musical discourse. TTI's Altkat workshops and Gurbet Korosu,
provide core activities that support development and empowerment of culturally underrepresented and
disadvantaged groups within Istanbul and Turkey, youth, women and girls, powerfully influencing the young
musicians of tomorrow.
TTI incorporates methodologies modeled over the course of the PI's five-year, ERC-supported Beyond East and
West (BEW) project to address issues often arising in common transtraditional musical situations, bringing such
methodologies into situations where they will achieve maximal impact: 'on the ground,' in practice. It presents
proof of solutions we have developed in response to cross-cultural challenges, with public-facing learning and
performance activities to increase standards and common understanding of each other's musics--with workshops
led by professional musicians who have already had key role in BEW themselves. This aims to elicit the
development of intercultural skills to young musicians at a far earlier age, better preparing them for the diverse 21st
century musical landscape, especially represented in places such as Istanbul.
Our longer-term aim is to positively change pedagogy and performance of music in Turkey, raising awareness of
the importance of Bozlak and Bogaz Havalari traditions, embedding TTI's principles and processes first within
workshops, and eventually the curricula of schools and conservatories to ensure lasting impact. Such transcultural
methodologies and models meanwhile will be found applicable to a wide variety of disciplines, providing models
for a society today frequently faced with the selfsame communicative challenges.
principles: first that society and its functioning can be positively affected through music, and second that research
demonstrated in practice creates real change.
TTI addresses key development challenges for Turkey by establishing a network with four key partners (TMDK,
MIAM, UoB and IKSV) dedicated to the preservation and development of traditional Turkish musical cultures in
danger of disappearing--namely Bozlak and women's throat songs (Bogaz Havalari) from the Teke region, and by
bringing this music into a contemporary, urban musical discourse. TTI's Altkat workshops and Gurbet Korosu,
provide core activities that support development and empowerment of culturally underrepresented and
disadvantaged groups within Istanbul and Turkey, youth, women and girls, powerfully influencing the young
musicians of tomorrow.
TTI incorporates methodologies modeled over the course of the PI's five-year, ERC-supported Beyond East and
West (BEW) project to address issues often arising in common transtraditional musical situations, bringing such
methodologies into situations where they will achieve maximal impact: 'on the ground,' in practice. It presents
proof of solutions we have developed in response to cross-cultural challenges, with public-facing learning and
performance activities to increase standards and common understanding of each other's musics--with workshops
led by professional musicians who have already had key role in BEW themselves. This aims to elicit the
development of intercultural skills to young musicians at a far earlier age, better preparing them for the diverse 21st
century musical landscape, especially represented in places such as Istanbul.
Our longer-term aim is to positively change pedagogy and performance of music in Turkey, raising awareness of
the importance of Bozlak and Bogaz Havalari traditions, embedding TTI's principles and processes first within
workshops, and eventually the curricula of schools and conservatories to ensure lasting impact. Such transcultural
methodologies and models meanwhile will be found applicable to a wide variety of disciplines, providing models
for a society today frequently faced with the selfsame communicative challenges.
| Title | A Goat in Ancient Cities |
| Description | New Composition for Cura, sipsi/kaval and kabak kemane by Deniz Yildiz. (6') Based on Teke region music and composed for Erdem Simsek Trio for performance on TTI June 24-27, 2021 conference as a live-streamed event. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | Just completed |
| URL | https://nc16653.wixsite.com/ttiproject/call-for-scores |
| Title | Turnalar ve Martilar |
| Description | New Composition for Youth choir, Cura, sipsi, and kemane by Gizem Aliver. (6') Based on text on 'Gurbet Havalari' (Migration/exile songs) created together with Baris Için Müzik Korosu, and composed for Erdem Simsek Trio for performance on TTI June 24-27, 2021 conference as a live-streamed event. |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | Just completed, being revised now |
| URL | https://nc16653.wixsite.com/ttiproject/call-for-scores |
| Description | (Please note the current report is indicative of only partially through the award, as a further Covid extension is being applied for) The objectives of increasing awareness of TTI's perspective on the treatment of traditional musics has already had a significant influence on composers, both as a result of the TTI conference itself, and as a consequence of educational initiatives it has spawned, even if these have been as concentrated in the UK as they have been in Turkey so far. Several key workshops and recordings to take place in Istanbul are still to come. (Please see CV section for outcomes still pending) |
| Exploitation Route | The findings have already been seized on in the UK educational sector in its efforts to decolonise the Music curriculum. (see narrative below for examples) Due to the structural and technical implementation of this within Music (not only 'cultural'), TTI provides a model for those with an imagination to change a discipline from the inside out, as it were, questioning working methods and materials, implicit hegemonies and biases in widely accepted norms (in Music, the prevalence of equal temperament is one example) which have no reason to be dominant aside from the vast advantage Western musics have enjoyed in their proliferation around the globe. Such models can be profitably applied to other fields willing to question the implicit assumptions of their modus operandi. -TTI provides a model for musicians and composers to work with (ethno-)musicologists and practitioners in a constructive way to achieve a much higher level of mutual collaboration as equal partners than was previously recognised as being possible in the composition world. The eurocentrism of the usual conception of 'composer' itself is a key part of this; however the outcome of not doing away with individual creators, but merely giving advanced tools to better collaboration and increase input from (especially orally based) musicians marks a constructive way forward to both enhancing sustainability of endangered musical traditions, while giving composers their freedom, albeit with much more responsibility. |
| Sectors | Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | https://nc16653.wixsite.com/ttiproject |
| Description | The TTI project is contributing to the nucleation of a new research area in Western universities. Findings in academic circles so far have been used, unexpectedly, to inform decolonisation of the Music curriculum at University of Bristol. Case studies on Bozlak (a key component of TTI), and other Asian pastoralist/nomadic and Turkic cultures, namely those of Xinjiang and Tuva have been incorporated into mandatory Music History units in the department, with PI Ellison teaching. It has also influenced the scope of music and disciplines under study by our current PhD students. Following the PI's lead, new PhD students taken in since the start of this award have begun composition degrees as Bristol focusing on many of the topics addressed in TTI, especially that of the intersections of oral tradition with the urban, contemporary educational and production landscape. For example, a new PhD student is focusing on mainly orally transmitted raga materials as the basis of a composition degree, something which in our programme had not been possible before. Another will begin next year examining Guzheng. Current students have written for a host of non-Western instruments, to the point where this is becoming a norm. More importantly, they are challenged to behave responsibly and ethically in their forays into 'source' musics they base their composition on, making the 21st century transcultural composer's model more demanding on research done before composition, with much much questioning of sources, resources, and the removing of structural biases of orientation for the musicians concerned (in other words, collaborating with 'folk' musicians, instead of simply recording them/finding recordings and then 'using' material. This has led composers influenced by TTI's outcomes to always question transcription sources much more critically. The confluence of the disciplines of ethnomusicology and composition has never been closer or more important, as much broader ideas such as sustainability, gender quality and rigour of intention. This confluence was remarked on in the final day of the conference as one of its very unique aspects for participants, who had never seen anything like it. Concomitant with this is the commitment of Routledge to a new book series on Transcultural music, with TTI's findings since its international conference clearly influencing its editorial board. It also influenced the content orientation of the PI's sister 'Beyond East and West' project whose emphasis on oral tradition perspectives has been much further refined than before TTI. Not coincidentally, its material on Baglama and Sipsi (Abdal and Yörük music) has been remarked on by practitioner-reviewers as outstanding. This is despite the considerable challenges to translating text from pastoral sources (even the Turkish is so old or idiomatic as to be quite unclear in their meanings), and a lack of theory or 'naming' in general for these musical genres and the musical techniques and ways of creating within them, and especially the challenges of established norms of transcription which often support less endemic interpretations of material in educational institutions as one might hope. But the move from rural to urban and form oral transmission to unprecedented density and detail in notation is one that is well underway, and one very real factor TTI tries to deal with in its simultaneously 'preservationist' (a high level of regard for original interpretations and musicians working directly form the field) and 'progressive' (subsequent new creation based on this research, which yet does not attempt to duplicate the traditional, but simply be deeply informed by it). Our longer-term aim to positively change pedagogy and performance of music in Turkey, raising awareness of the importance of Bozlak and Bogaz Havalari tradition is already underway, thanks to the influence on young composers and singers involved in the two TTI commissions, both based on Yörük Bogaz Havalari. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
| Sector | Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | Baris Icin Müzik Vakfi Korosu (Music for Peace Foundation Choir) |
| Organisation | Baris Icin Müzik Vakfi Korosu |
| Country | Turkey |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | TTI has provided a workshop for choir participants so far on Yörük music, and 'Creating a Text'. The text produced, over two Zoom sessions a week apart, was then used as the basic for a new composition by TTI composition competition winner Gizem Aliver for the choir and Erdem Simsek Trio, to be performed June 24-27 at the TTI international conference in Istanbul, Covid permitting. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Baris Icin Müzik Vakfi Korosu (Music for Peace Foundation Choir) provided the material for the text by the new TTI composition competition winner Gizem Aliver. This choir is the choir singing about migration and exile, as identified in the original proposal as the 'Gurbet Choir'. The choir's director, Ceyda Cekmeci, has attended all meetings, involved the youth of the choir, and helped advise the composer on revisions to make the score more performable. |
| Impact | Gizem Aliver, Turna ve Martilara Türkü (6 minutes) Composition for choir and Erdem Simsek Trio Article: Foregrounding Exile and Longing through Music, for special Arts Migration issue, submitted but not yet published. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | A few considerations on Transcultural Music-Making Today 4th International Conference on Performing Arts (ICPA), Institut Seni Indonesia Yogyakarta, Nov. 10, 2021 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Papers given to address Humanism in the Arts and Sciences in the Covid-era, 4th International Conference on Performing Arts (ICPA), Institut Seni Indonesia Yogyakarta, Nov. 10, 2021. Keynote. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://dikti.kemdikbud.go.id/kabar-dikti/kampus-kita/isi-yogyakarta-selenggarakan-3rd-annual-syspos... |
| Description | Appearance on New and Newest Music Panel as Moderator at ARTER Istanbul |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | On February 26 I led a panel of the New and Newest Music Festival which included three Turkish composers: Onur Turkmen, Alper Maral and Tolga Yayalar. The event reached the audience in a zoom webinar format and was held entirely in Turkish, debating 'The Theory of New Music'. While mostly moderating views of the panel on what was important in contemporary music today, I also, I believe created impact with the participants (including the festival curator who runs several major festivals in Europe, and the director of ARTER, who is highly influential in Istanbul policy making in the Arts, surrounding the key tenets of TTI, sharing TTI's focus as a major area of inquiry for 'New Music.' Several audience questions the following Q+A related to the points I had made. One of the members of the panel also commented enthusiastically on the different perspective I offered. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.arter.org.tr/en/a-conversation-on-the-theory-of-new-music |
| Description | Call for Papers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | We sent out this call for papers (link below) for our 'Yörük' conference (as described in the original proposal) now called 'Transformations of Musical Creativity in the 21st century' We received 63 paper/performance/workshop proposals and will decide on which are in or out for the now primarily online conference next week. We involved several individuals beyond the project team as volunteers to serve the conference committee, increasing reach of the event. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://nc16653.wixsite.com/ttiproject/conference |
| Description | Multidimensionality in Makam Musics, TUMAC Presentation, 26 Subat 2022 Cumartesi 21:00 Prof. Michael Ellison |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Paper given on TUMAC panel, with Dr. Ozan Baysal as moderator, discussing new conceptions for makam musics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-SSscA8ZRc |
| Description | U of Bristol Music Seminar: Yörük Sound Worlds: A Collaborative Experience in Ethnomusicological Fieldwork |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | This seminar by E. Sirin Özgün and Suna Baslanti, on the University of Bristol weekly research series, brought Yörük aspects of the TTI project into wider visibility in the Bristol community and the UK. It may well be the first time anyone has spoken on this subject in the UK. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/events/2021/february/yoruk-sound-worlds-a-collaborative-experience-in... |