Bekir Şahin Baloğlu & Nurullah Kanık
Ferahnak

Fy 8187

885016818722
Felmay Records
Turchia

 

Two young, brilliant and talented soloists play some compositions of Ottoman Turkish classical music composed mostly during the transitional period between the end of the Ottoman Empire and the birth of the Republic of Turkey (1923). Significantly they name their work Ferahnak with a double sense: in fact, it is an Ottoman term coming from Persian that can be translated as ‘Joyful, Serene’ and, at the same time, it’s the name of a luminous musical mode (makâm).


Two young, brilliant and talented soloists play some compositions of Ottoman Turkish classical music composed mostly during the transitional period between the end of the Ottoman Empire and the birth of the Republic of Turkey (1923). Significantly they name their work Ferahnak with a double sense: in fact, it is an Ottoman term coming from Persian that can be translated as ‘Joyful, Serene’ and, at the same time, it’s the name of a luminous musical mode (makâm).
Taking into account the Anonymous Muhayyer Tekke Semâîsi, it is possible to say that half of this CD is made by compositions coming from musicians educated at the Sufi centres (tekke), like Neyzen Yusuf Paşa and Nâyi Dede Salih Efendi, while the other half is made by secular compositions coming from composers linked with the Ottoman Court like Zeki Mehmed Ağa; the acclaimed and popular virtuoso Tanbûrî Cemil Bey and by two new Turk composers like Refik Fersan and Sedat Öztoprak. Nevertheless in Ottoman Turkish music is rather difficult to neatly distinguish between a pure Classical/court/secular music and a pure Sufi spiritual music.

Bekir Şahin Baloğlu, was born in Kayseri in 1985. learned to play the lute bağlama from his father, poet Osman Baloğlu, since he was 5 years old. In 1997, he became seriously involved in music when he started his studies in music theory and ‘ûd lessons with Ismail Ediz. He also took oud lessons from Ali Atay and Tolga Özdemir for a while. In 2003 he started taking ‘ûd lessons from instructors such as Osman Nuri Özpekel, Mehmet Bitmez and Yurdal Tokcan. In 2009 he joined Bezmârâ Ensemble, directed by Fikret Karakaya, as lutes kopuz and tanbûr player.
Nurullah Kanık was born in Bursa in 1982. Between 1994 and 1996 he participated to local radio and TV music programs and in 1997 he began to take regular lessons from the ney player Hamdi Delil. In the same 1997, he entered Bursa Municipality Conservatory. He then moved to the State Turkish Music Conservatory of Istanbul Technique University (ITU). where he studied the ney with the great living master Niyazi Sayin. He gave concerts and recorded CDs and documentary works with important artists and groups.