Musicians from the DÜNYA collective will debut Palindrome, an original jazz composition by Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol with Turkish classical music influences, with an open-to-the-public performance on May 19^th.  After almost a decade, along with Palindrome, Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol will have his original compositions scored for a jazz combo of 6 horns, rhythm section and Turkish music instruments performed again.

Location: AIC Cultural Center, 38 Newbury St. Suite 702 (7th Floor)
Date/Time: Saturday, May 19
Wine and Cheese Reception at 7:00pm
Pre-Concert Talk at 7:30pm
Concert at 8:00pm
Price of admission: General: $15, Students/seniors: $10

• Listen to Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol discuss DÜNYA’s A Story of the City: Constantinople, Istanbul double CD set
• Listen to Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol discuss DÜNYA’s Music of Cyprus CD

Georgia Straight, April 2012, 2012

Advance word on Alexander the Great: Hero, Warrior, Lover is that it’s a collaboration between an acclaimed early-music group, the Boston Camerata, and an equally admirable Turkish-American ensemble, Dünya. The truth is a little more complex than that…

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The Music of Istanbul’s Inhabitants – a journey in time
by Aaron Howard

Jewish Herald-Voice, December 29, 2011

Many people know that Istanbul was the capital of the Ottoman Empire for five centuries. But, most forget the city also was capital of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire before that for 10 centuries. Thus, if one wanted to explore Istanbul’s many-layered communal history through music, you’d have to start with Greek Orthodox Church and Byzantine secular music. Then, one might visit Crusader songs…

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Dunya Ensemble Traces 1000 Years of Istanbul Music on a Massive Double Album
by delarue

Lucid Culture, November 30, 2011

Boston-based Turkish music group Dunya Ensemble has two new double albums out. The first of these is the lavish A Story of the City: Constantinople, Istanbul, a dreamlike, surreal and sometimes ghostly creation…

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A Masterful Voyage through the Musical History of Istanbul
by Aromero

World Music Central, October 18, 2011

One of the most interesting releases scheduled for November 2011 is the two CD set titled A Story of the City…

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Dunya
A Story of the City: Constantinople Istanbul
by David Luhrssen

Express Milwaukee, October 9, 2011

Istanbul, or Constantinople as it was known for much of its history, was always one of the crossroads of the world. As the place where Asia meets Europe and the Black Sea flows into Mediterranean, the city was the capital of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires…

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A Concert for Turkish Earthquake Relief

DÜNYA performs Ottoman court, Sufi and entertainment music. Followed by reception with Turkish refreshments. All proceeds to benefit relief efforts.

Location: Brandeis University, Slosberg Recital Hall
Date/Time: Saturday, January 28, 8pm
Pre-concert talk at 7pm
Price of admission: General: $10, Students: $5

İki Cihan Arasında / Between Two Worlds: Turkey’s West Within
program

Folk, classical, religious and popular music of the Ottoman/Turkish tradition, interwoven with classical Ottoman music newly transcribed from 19th century Greek sources, early European music and newly-composed polyphonic makam compositions.

Location: Boston College, Gasson Hall, Room 100
Date/Time: Thursday, February 23, 8pm

Location: Tufts University, Distler Hall
Date/Time: Friday, February 24, 8pm

Location: Bates College, Chapel
Date/Time: Monday, February 27, 7:30pm

Location: New England Conservatory, Jordan Hall
Date/Time: Wednesday, February 29, 8pm

DÜNYA Contemporary Jazz Concert Series

Join us on these special nights where musicians from the DÜNYA collective will perform Jazz and original music by Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol fusing makam (Middle Eastern modal concepts) and Jazz.

Location: AIC Cultural Center, 38 Newbury St. Suite 702 (7th Floor)
Date(s)/Time: 
Saturday, March 3, 8:30pm
Saturday, March 24, 8:30pm

ALEXANDER THE GREAT: Hero, Warrior and Lover

In collaboration with The Boston Camerata

Alexander’s deeds, both real and legendary, inspired bardic poetry and song in pre-Christian, Christian, Jewish and Muslim societies alike. The second of DÜNYA’s east-west collaborations with The Boston Camerata brings together these diverse traditions in a performance of old and new music and improvisations based on sources from classical antiquity, from medieval Europe and from West Asia.

We are also happy to announce that one of DÜNYA’s double CDs recorded by Grammy nominated engineer John Weston, entitled A Story of the City: Constantinople, Istanbul is currently submitted for a Grammy award. This special CD production not only has an important message but also features a largely Boston-based cast of 35 DÜNYA musicians. Please help us get the word around about this project in order to secure our place in the Grammy finals.

We would like to recognize with gratitude the contributions of the DÜNYA staff, members of the DÜNYA advisory board, and our financial supporters, without whom none of these accomplishments would have been possible.

Dr. Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol, president
Dr. Robert Labaree, vice president

DÜNYA has a core ensemble and many circles of friends. Each of our productions will present a musical theme and, depending on this theme and the kinds of instruments required, our core ensemble will be joined by a number of our friends. That’s what makes us a Musicians’ Collective.

Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol

The Boston Globe, November 11, 2011

Mehmet Ali Sanlikol is one of the musicians performing at the Playing for the Planet concert. Warren Senders figures that a global crisis requires an international response…

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Muslims and Jews, in Harmony
by Jim Ball 

The Jewish Advocate, January 21, 2011

“You can’t build walls high enough to keep out the penetration of music,” said ethnomusicologist Robert Labaree. “You can’t stop music.” The New England Conservatory professor spoke at Congregation Beth El of Sudbury as part of a Martin Luther King Day program that focused on the little known 1,500 year connection…

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Listen to the music of Cyprus / Kıbrıs’ın Sesi’ne kulak verin
by Burçin Tuncer

North Cyprus Magazine, 2008

The island of Cyprus is known for its multicultural structure, a historical legacy of thousands of years of inter-civilizational interaction. For long years, Greeks and Turks have lived on this island together, enjoying and disliking similar things…

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DUNYA
by Roanna Forman

Artscope, Nov./Dec. 2007

That line, from Dunya’s 2006 concert production of “Wisdom and Turkish Humor”, sums up the organization’s raison d’etre and extraordinary appeal. Directror Mehmet Ali Sanlikol founded the organization with Robert Labaree in 2004 to “find creative ways to show paradoxes found in parallel, but contradictory…

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Turkish, Western traditions in harmony
by David Perkins

The Boston Globe, October 31, 2006

The concert began with a rumble of drums, followed by a blare of trumpets and shawms of the sort that must have terrified Vienna when the Ottomans besieged the city in 1683. It ended with a laughing arrangement of Mozart’s ”Rondo Alla turca” written a century later…

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Get a taste of Turkey at Ryles, 
by Bob Young

Boston Herald, November 18, 2005

”I Will Survive” in Turkish? A lute slicing through a funk tune? Armenian rap? Get ready for Middle Eastern Rap, Funk and Disco Night at Ryles in Cambridge tonight…

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DOCTOR OF MUSIC, 
by Cemil Özyurt

Turk of America, April 2005

Since last year music enthusiasts in Boston have been able to enjoy themselves at a variety of music concerts, randing from Sufi music, from Anatolian Rock to the songs of famous…

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Turkish Arabesk, 
by Matuya Brand

Weekly Dig, April 16, 2004

Arabesk is like rap music – brewed in the ghetto as a response to issues of social justice but increasingly popular. Its popularization, however, says Mehmet Sanlikol, a doctoral student at the New England Conservatory, lacks depth and meaning…

READ

• DÜNYA performed a very special program in the 5000 seat open air Harbiye Açıkhava Tiyatrosu in Istanbul on June 18, 2010

DÜNYA was selected to bring a largely Boston-based cast of 34 musicians to perform a special program in Istanbul in June of 2010. The program, part of the European Union-sponsored celebration of Istanbul as European Culture Capital in 2010, explored Istanbul’s communal memory through a wide range of repertoires: Greek Orthodox music, Greek folk music, Crusader songs, music of the Ottoman military ensembles, Ottoman court music, Sufi ceremonial music, Turkish folk music, Sephardic Jewish songs, urban music of the Armenians and Turks, and contemporary popular music.

Watch DÜNYA perform in Istanbul!

Purchase A Story of the City: Constantinople, Istanbul CD

• DÜNYA performed the Music of Cyprus program at Salamis Theatre in Famagusta, Cyprus on July 9, 2008

DÜNYA’s Music of Cyprus program brings together a Greek Cypriot (Theodoulos Vakanas) and a Turkish Cypriot musician (Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol) where they lead an ensemble of Greek and Turkish musicians which present the musical traditions of the island of Cyprus.

Watch DÜNYA perform in Famagusta, Cyprus!

Listen to Mehmet Sanlıkol and Theodoulos Vakanas discuss DÜNYA’s Music of Cyprus CD on NPR’s Here and Now with Robin Young

Purchase DÜNYA’s critically acclaimed Music of Cyprus CD

• DÜNYA was featured on May 31, 2006 at Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage

For this Millennium Stage debut DÜNYA presented unique ways of presenting Turkish music. The repertoire included two love songs back-to-back but bridged by improvised vocals, the first love song composed by an Ottoman sultan, the second by a contemporary Turkish pop singer. Another genre that was explored derives from müşterek taksim (different instruments improvising simultaneously), which Mehmet and Cem developed into their own çift gazel in which two singers improvise simultaneously while carefully following each other in the style of Hafız.

Add to this original compositions, influenced by Jazz, Western Classical, Turkish Classical, Turkish Folk, and contemporary music and enter through DÜNYA’s portal into the complex intricacies of multiple Turkish musical traditions.

Watch DÜNYA’s May 31, 2006 Kennedy Center/Millennium Stage Performance!

FALL 2011

MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE

This exciting event brings together the talents of DÜNYA and two other musical groups from each of the three Abrahamic traditions for an afternoon of celebration and song through Christian gospel songs, Sufi melodies, and Jewish music.

Location: Congregation Shirat Hayam, 55 Atlantic Avenue, Swampscott, MA
Date/Time: Sunday, October 23, 3-5:00pm

PLAYING FOR THE PLANET: World Strings Against Climate Change

DÜNYA performs along with South Indian music and classical guitar music. Proceeds of the event will benefit the environmental advocacy group 350.org. Great music for a great cause.

Location: Emmanuel Church, 15 Newbury Street, Boston, MA
Date/Time: Friday, November 11, 7pm

TWO SACRED MUSIC TRADITIONS FROM THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN: Syriac and Greek Orthodox Christianity, a Comparison

This program offers a rare opportunity to hear practitioners of the music of Eastern Christianity, rarely heard by Americans who are not members of the Syriac and Greek Orthodox Churches. Syriac Orthodoxy uses the oldest surviving liturgy in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus and the language of much of the Talmud. Greek Orthodoxy uses liturgical forms and texts that date back to the first century A.D. and was the official religion of the Byzantine empire which dominated the eastern Mediterranean from the 4th through the 15th centuries.

Two expert cantors will explore, through performance and dialogue, the shared musical language and the unique musical traits of the Syriac and Greek Orthodox traditions. Gabriel Aydın representing Syriac Orthodoxy and Menios Karanos representing Greek Orthodoxy will be joined by Dr. Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol, who will act as a moderator of this lecture-performance.

Location: Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Maliotis Cultural Center, Dukakis Wing
Date/Time: Thursday, November 17, 2011, 3pm

Location: New England Conservatory, Pierce Hall
Date/Time: Friday, November 18, 2011, Noon

An Intimate Evening of 17^th Century Ottoman Music

Ali Ufki, born Albert Bobowski in 1610, was a Polish Christian who converted to Islam after his capture by the Ottoman Turks and spent the remainder of his life in Istanbul, becoming renowned as a court musician, as a notator of Ottoman classical music, and as a Bible translator. This intimate concert of 17^th century Ottoman music is mostly based on repertoire Ali Ufki collected in a unique manuscript—the famous Mecmua-i Saz-ı Söz of 1650—which preserved for modern times about a thousand songs and instrumental pieces, the first instance in which western staff notation was applied to Turkish music. Come to this one of a kind event to hear a special program of early Ottoman court, Sufi and entertainment music, performed by the DÜNYA ensemble with translations and projections of the Ali Ufki manuscript.

Location: AIC Center, 38 Newbury St. Suite 702 (7th Floor)
Date/Time: Saturday, December 10, 7pm
Price of admission: General: $15, Students/seniors: $10

 

SPRING 2011

JEWS AND SUFIS: A Shared Musical Tradition with Edwin Seroussi program   photos Since at least the 16th century, the Turkish maftirim repertoire–Hebrew devotional poetry set to Turkish makam music for use in the synagogue–demonstrates the deep relationships Ottoman Jews established with members of Muslim mystical brotherhoods. Leading scholar, Prof. Edwin Seroussi in a panel of three will speak on cultural, historical, religious and musical aspects of the topic, followed by dialogue with the audience. The program will conclude with a lively recital featuring an ensemble of Jewish, Muslim and Christian vocalists and instrumentalists demonstrating examples of relevant musical repertoire. Location: Congregation Beth El of the Sudbury River Valley Date/Time: Monday, January 17, 2011, 7:30pm Location: Turkish Cultural Center Boston Date/Time: Thursday, January 27, 2011, 6:30pm Location: Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Lynn Date/Time: Sunday, February 6, 2011, 2pm Location: Boston University, Hillel House Date/Time: Wednesday, February 9, 2011, 5:30pm

İki Cihan Arasında / Between Two Worlds: An Ottoman Musical Tapestry program Folk, classical, religious and popular music of the Ottoman/Turkish tradition, interwoven with classical Ottoman music newly transcribed from 19th century Greek sources, Bektaşi Sufi music, Turkish-Jewish maftirim pieces in Hebrew based on Sufi music, and newly-composed polyphonic makam compositions. Location: Stonehill College                                                photos Date/Time: Monday, March 7, 2011, 7pm Location: Mariposa Museum and World Culture Center Date/Time: Saturday, March 19, 2011, 7pm Location: Harvard University, Busch Hall Date/Time: Friday, March 25, 2011, 8pm Location: New England Conservatory, Brown Hall                photos Date/Time: Monday, March 28, 2011, 8pm

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FALL 2010

program   photos

Join us in an evening where the DUNYA ensemble will present an Ottoman tableaux of different religious musical practices in Islam, Greek Orthodoxy and Sephardic Judaism.

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