Internationally renowned musicians Ahmet Erdoğdular and Münir Beken will present an evening of Ottoman and Turkish classical music on Saturday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. in the Carleton College Concert Hall. This rare and not-to-be-missed performance is free and open to the public.
Beken, a virtuoso of the ud (a round-bodied stringed instrument similar to a guitar), has performed internationally to much acclaim. A founding member of the State Turkish Music Ensemble, his compositions have been featured in New York and Istanbul and have won awards for film music and television documentaries around the world. He teaches composition, world music theory, and Middle Eastern and Central Asian music as a member of UCLA’s Ethnomusicology Department. He has released an album of his works entitled The Art of the Turkish Ud(Rounder Select, 1997).
Considered one of the most important voices in the contemporary Turkish classical music, Ahmet Erdoğdular is a master singer and instrumentalist in the Ottoman tradition. Erdoğdular specializes in classical vocal improvisational forms in addition to also performing on the ud, the tanbur (a long-necked lute), and percussion. In advance of the concert, Erdoğdular will discuss and demonstrate Turkish vocal improvisation techniques while accompanying himself on the tanbur in a special pre-concert appearance on Thursday, Feb. 17 at noon in the College’s Gould Library Athenaeum.
Erdoğdular has performed at music festivals across Asia, Europe, and America. His latest albums – Songs of the Sultans (AEM, 2009) and Niyaz-Sufi Songs of Love (AEM, 2009) have both received international critical acclaim.
This event is sponsored by the Department of Middle Eastern Languages. The Concert Hall is located on the Carleton campus at the intersection of First and Nevada Streets. For more information or disability accommodations, contact Maureen Jackson at (507) 222-7489 or maureenj@carleton.edu.
