Gümüşlük set to open music season

ISTANBUL

The 13th edition of the International Gümüşlük Classical Music Festival will add color to the artistic life in the western resort of Bodrum between July 8 and Aug. 11. With a new concept, the festival will feature various types of music from classical to jazz and ethnic music to alternative music, as well as workshops and jam sessions. The concerts will last for five weeks in various venues including the Koyunbaba Ancient Stone Quarry. 

This year the festival will be organized under three different themes: Jazz on the Water, Guitar on the Sand and Classical on the Rocks. The program also includes the Earthbag piano series, five masterclasses and 38 concerts on four different stages. 

Classical on the Rocks concerts 

Names like Gülsin Onay, Jean Muller, Bülent Evcil and Rafael Trevisani will take the Classical on the Rocks stage, which will be at the main venue of the festival, the Koyunbaba Ancient Stone Quarry. 

This year music lovers will see violin virtuoso Ayla Erduran once again on the festival stage. She will perform her most-loved piano sonatas with French musician Stephane Blet on July 29. 

On July 8, pianist Onay will perform her 2000th concert for the opening of the International Gümüşlük Classical Music Festival. Onay will take the stage with the Saygun Quartet, the winner of this year’s Ulvi Yücelen Chamber Music Competition. 

She will play the quartet version of the Chopin concerto, which she worked with her master, Mİthat Fenmen, on his 100th birthday. Counter bass artist Cemre Burhan Çetin will be the guest of the opening concert. The program will also include works by Ulvi Cemal Erkin and Dvorak. 

The Muğla Metropolitan Municipality City Orchestra, which was founded last year, will give a public open concert on Aug. 1, performing classical version of Nail Yavuzoğlu folk songs. 

Muller, Ilya Kondratiev & Emre Yavuz, Evcil, Philip Moll, Raffaele Trevisani and Paola Girardi are among the other artists to perform in the Classical on the Rocks concerts. 

On Aug. 10, Onay, the art consultant of the festival, will also give the closing concert with pianist Eren Levendoğlu, the artistic director of the festival, in the historic stone quarry. 

Piano series in Earthbag 

The boutique concerts series, which will start with piano this year and continue with various instruments in the next editions, will be organized in Earthbag on the Gümüşlük coast. The series will open on July 9 with Yavuz and feature performances by Kondratiev, Onay and Blet. 

Jazz on the Water 

With the Jazz on the Water concerts, the previous jazz concerts at the festival will return to the festival stage with a powerful program. Musicians who have set their hearts on jazz will meet jazz lovers in Gümüşlük.  

Famous Norwegian jazz trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær, who has been invited to Turkey in collaboration with ENKA Culture and Arts, is among the most awaited names of the festival. 

Those who missed him in Gümüşlük will be able to view him on July 12 at the ENKA Eşref Denizhan Open Air Theater in Istanbul. 

Simin Tander will take audiences on a music journey to Afghanistan in Gümüşlük on July 12. Following the “one-man orchestra” Hakon Kornstad’s concert on July 19, the Muğla Metropolitan Municipality Jazz Orchestra will be at the Gümüşlük Harbor on Aug. 2. 

The the Jazz on the Water concerts will host a master: Emin Fındıkoğlu + 12 will be on the stage with a “big band” concert on Aug. 5. Before this concert, veteran jazz musician İlham Gencer will receive the Lifetime Honorary Award. 

One of the most distinguished artists of Norway, Kristin Asbjornsen, and guitarist Olav Torget will perform the last concert of the series on Aug. 9. 

Guitar on the Sand 

The Guitar on the Sand concerts will present well-known local and foreign guitarists on the sand during the sunset. Young Cape Town guitarist Derek Gripper will bring African music to Bodrum on July 20. The duo of Hasan Meten and Erdem Sökmen, two important performers of South American jazz music in Turkey, will be on the stage on July 21. They will be followed by Irish guitarist Redmond O’Toole, one of the most distinctive and original guitarists of his generation, on July 22. 

The creator of countless compositions, award-winning young Polish guitarist Marek Pasieczny and Golfam Khayam & Mona Matbou Riahi (Duo Naqsh), a musical project which aims to bring Iran’s forgotten ethnic musical voices to the international scene, will be on the stage on July 23 and 24, respectively. 

The last concert of the series will feature all guitarists at the ancient stone quarry for an unforgettable performance on July 26. Students of the Guitar on the Sand week will also perform in Gümüşlük on July 27. 

This year the Gümüşlük Festival Academy, which has been operating as part of the Gümüşlük International Classical Music Festival since 2006, will organize piano, violin, flute and guitar masterclasses during the festival. Young talents will perform five concerts. 

The academy will also have chance to collaborate with two institutes in Italy and Bulgaria. The project will host eight Turkish students in Italy in August and in Bulgaria the next February.