On An Overgrown Path

Visiting the ECM website is rather like attending a Salvation Army service. You know there are worthy and wonderful things happening. But there is also a feeling of stasis. Take for instance this description of a new release : Moroccan-born singer Amina Alaoui presents her own border-transcending project. When Alaoui sings there is “no need to discuss the origins of fado, flamenco or Al Andalusi” for the music itself explores the common crucible of the styles, and Amina’s delivery makes the interconnections impossible to miss. The third question asked by Bálint András Varga in his invaluable book Three Questions for Sixty-Five Composers is "How far can one speak of a personal style and where does self-repetition begin?" Now I will be the first to acknowledge that in the past On An Overgrown Path has featured more than its fair share of border-transcending projects . But that it not going to stop me saying that in world music, which Philip Glass famously described as the n...

In March we were in Turkey and were held spellbound by the country’s unique cultural and religious mix. But in recent weeks we have watched with increasing alarm as the country’s religious and secular factions have moved on a collision force, culminating in this week's massive demonstrations in Istanbul. Taksim Square is the political nerve centre of Istanbul. Today's violent May Day demonstration took place there, and I took the photo below of a small demonstration in the square in March. Taksim is the Turkish word for division, and was the rallying cry of Turkish Cypriots who supported the partition of Cyprus into Turkish and Greek enclaves. As I write Turkey is under threat of a military coup, and, in a frightening reminder that tyranny is never far away in the Balkans, it was an abortive coup in Cyprus in 1974 that ended the military dictatorship in neighbouring Greece. If anyone needs reminding of the political and cultural horrors that accompany Balkan military coups ...

Modern Istanbul's complex geography renders it all but unmappable: three dozen districts swelling over seven hills, no single centre, fingered by water, jumbled in time. Age dilutes its fluidity. I can't keep a grip on its currents of slippery politics, of chaotic transport, of residents drawn together to argue, talk and trade. Its light is maritime, a sea lies over each shoulder, yet the city is 2,000 miles from any ocean. A ten-minute stroll takes me from a sleepy Greek fishing village to a Hapsburg cul-de-sac reminiscent of a Klimt painting. Across the horizon surge waves of new world tower blocks. In the shifting expanding spiral of my wanderings, I find its anarchic streets, its shifting colours, its millions of voices, its dreams of a legendary past at once foreign and familiar. I'm at the Pudding Shop, the first meeting point on the hippie trail to Kathmandu. In 1957, two brothers from the Black Sea, Namik and Idris Çolpan opened the Lale Pastanesi across from Ista...

Calligraphy by Yazi Sanatcisi Now playing - Su by Mercan Dede. Contemporary culture in Istanbul is really jumping ahead of becoming European City of Culture in 2010. We ate at restaurants like Amedros in Sultanahmet that would not be out of place in London or New York. The new Istanbul Museum of Modern Art in a converted military warehouse on the waterfront with its exhibition of work from the Magnum Photos agency is sensational. And there is a music scene to match. If you don't know Mercan Dede's contemporary take on Sufi music here is an introduction in his own words, or even better listen to his music on his website , and on YouTube : Mercan Dede (photo below) believes that when you put digital, electronic sounds together with hand-made, human ones, you can create universal language, capable of uniting old and young, ancient and modern, East and West. It’s a bold claim, but the Turkish-born and Montreal-based musician/producer/DJ has the career and the music to back i...

No two modes of architecture could be more different from one another than the Muslim and the West Christian. West Christian architecture in its early phase is filled with the craving for weight and massiveness; and in its second phase, the Gothic, in that for a spectacular liberation from that weight in a skyward ascent ... Moslem architecture is quite the opposite. A mosque is to be a court, a square, a market-place, lightly built to hold a large concourse of people. Allah is so great that nothing human can vie with Him in strength or endurance ... Even the Moslem castles, large though they are, give the effect of being light and insubstantial. But a Mosque is also a place for the contemplation of the Oneness of Allah. How can this better be done than by giving the eyes a maze of geometric patterns to brood over? The state aimed at is a sort of semi-trance. ( Pliable - See my reference to the Mevelevi Order below ). The mind contemplates the patterns, knows that they can be unravelle...

This photo essay portrays a double miracle. Not only are the Byzantine mosaics and frescoes in the Chora Church in Istanbul truly miraculous, but their survival through the city’s tempestuous history is a second miracle. The Church of St Saviour in Chora is today known as the Kariye Camii (Mosque) Museum. Originally part of a monastery dating from the early 5th century, the church takes its name from the Greek word ‘chora’ , meaning land outside a city, although the church has long since been swallowed up by the sprawl of urban Istanbul. The church was rebuilt three times between the 6th and 12th centuries, with two of these reconstructions following earthquake damage. It was then ransacked, but not destroyed, during the Fourth Crusade in the 13th century, when forces from the western Christian churches pillaged Orthodox Constantinople. The miraculous transformation of the Chora Church came in the years following the defeat of the Crusaders and the return of Constantinople to Byzanti...

During the 20th century several inspirational church figures were catalysts for the creation of new art and music in England. Probably best known is the Anglican Reverend Walter Hussey , whose commissions in the 1950s and 60s included Henry Moore’s sculpture Madonna and Child , stained glass from Marc Chagall , Benjamin Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb and Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. Less well known is the influence of the Russian Orthodox leader Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, who inspired one of the seminal works in 20th century sacred music, John Tavener’s Liturgy of St John Chrysostom. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Metropolitan Anthony had early musical connections as his uncle was Alexander Scriabin . The future Metropolitan’s father was a member of the Russian Imperial Diplomatic Corps, and as a child Metropolitan Anthony lived in Russian and Persia. The 1917 Russian Revolution forced the family to flee to Paris where the young exile took a doctorate in medicine at...

These art works are by the prolific musician and artist Mercan Dede . I first came across his work when I was in Istanbul years ago , and his ambient take on Sufi music featured in my Sounds of Sufism programme on Future Radio in 2010. Born in Istanbul and now resident in Canada, Mercan Dede's music integrates traditional Turkish instruments such as the ney and bendir with electronica to create a mix targeted at young dance club audiences . Sufism's liberal tendencies mean it is marginalised and sometimes persecuted by orthodox Islam, and Mercan Dede - aka DJ Arkin Allen - is in turn frowned on in traditional Sufi circles for, ironically, creatively implementing the Sufi doctrine of not going with the flow, but making the flow. As can be seen in the three examples, Mercan Dede's art works embrace syncretic themes; a selection of his art and music is on his personal website . Mercan Dede is actively helping make the flow: a portion of the proceeds from sales of hi...

Can you tell the state of a nation by the quality of its bookshops? My question is prompted by a recent visit to France where, once again, I was astounded by the range and quality of books on display in the country's bookshops. It wasn't just in the university city of Nantes , it was also in provincial towns such as La Roche sur Yon where the independent Mediastore carried a range of books and music that not only put to shame Britain's retailers but also proved irresistible. So from a major display of books commemorating 1968 I splurged on Les années 68 which provides a world view on that extraordinary year. An equally impressive music range yielded, among other CDs, Taksim Trio , a new release from the Turkish label Doublemoon which has featured here before. The trio of Hüsnü Senlendirici on clarinet, Ismail Tunçbilek on baglama and Aytaç Dogan on quanun dance between traditional, arabesque, jazz and classical styles in an album that is categorised as world music but...

Easter Sunday is the date of the annual celebration of Christ’s resurrection. The date of Easter is determined by the lunar cycle, with each Easter Sunday maintaining the same relationship to the preceding astronomical full moon as occurred at the resurrection in 30 AD. Because the Western Christian (Catholic, Anglican and Protestant) and Eastern Christian (Orthodox) churches use different calendars ( Gregorian and Julian respectively) Easter is often celebrated on different dates by the two churches. 2007 is one of the exceptional years when the dates coincide, the previous one was 2004 and the next is 2010. Orthodoxy was made the official religion of Russia in 988, and the photographs with this article were taken by me in the mother church of all Eastern Christians, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The Russian Orthodox Church followed the Byzantine musical tradition which excluded women’s voices and any instruments except bells. But while the Greek and Middle Eastern Orthodox Churches r...

'It is incredibly difficult for someone to feel as an outsider, especially in his own homeland. Due to the bitter and painful reality of my homeland, my music began to flow motivated by a distinct melancholy. It is my dream that the music has risen from my heart will find a place in the hearts of others...' That belated contribution to the debate about the Israel Philharmonic's BBC Proms appearance comes from Palestinian oud player Hosam Hayek. Despite an eclectic style which he describes as "I just play and compose what I feel - those Western elements in my music are the result of playing the piano and listening to classical and jazz music" his debut recording adroitly avoids the fusion soup trap . On Stranger in My Homeland Hosam Hayek is joined by musicians from the İstanbul-based Taksim Trio. Born in Shafaram in Palestine, Hayek explains that the album was recorded in Istanbul because “Especially when you are musician, you need a lot of space and freedom tha...

Why don't critics review the contribution of the audience as well as that of the performers? My question is prompted by our recent visit to the Edinburgh Festival. Let's forget about the ninety-minute queue of traffic caused by the unsigned closure of the main road into Edinburgh to construct a tramway. Let's forget about the trashy tourist shops and panhandlers on Princes Street. And let's forget about the two friendly policemen who advised us not to leave the car near the Festival Theatre in the city centre as " it would be stripped by junkies after dark ". Let's instead focus on the people you can see in my header photo, the capacity audience for a performance of Sufi music and dance by the Istanbul Music and Sema Group . The performing style of the audience was certainly not minimalist, there wasn't an Arvo Pärt among them. These were big hitters, more like Edgard Varèse in fact. The coughing was loud and beautifully timed to peak in the quietest...

That photo was taken by me recently in Turkish-occupied North Nicosia. There are strong historic links between Sufism and Cyprus due to the close proximity of Turkey. The dergah of the Naqshbandis - an order that has made numerous appearances on An Overgrown Path - is in Lefke in North Cyprus, while the Mevlevi Order of the followers of Rumi came to the island in 1571 when the Ottoman Empire conquered the island. In the heyday of Ottoman occupation there were thirty-six Mevlevi lodges in Cyprus, but these have now all fallen into disuse or disappeared. However the Mevlevi Museum at the Kyrenia Gate in Nicosia keeps the Sufi flame burning, and committed adepts such as the one above keep the tradition alive without devaluing it to a mere folkloric spectacle. Too often Rumi's poetry is reduced to a transcultural blancmange targeted at the lucrative self-help market. Just one example of this is Deepak Chopra's The Love Poems of Rumi . In his introduction the new age guru ...