Affable fifty-somethings, they have known each other for more than thirty years, live in Istanbul where their name makes sense to a very large public, all classes and generations combined. They have roamed the stages of the world but have never met there. The duet concert by Derya Türkan and Erdal Erzincan at the Théâtre des Abbesses in Paris, on Saturday January 22, organized on the initiative of Soudabeh Kia, artistic music advisor at the Théâtre de la Ville, was therefore a world premiere.
They prepared it in a few meetings over a glass of tea, at home, where they agreed on the repertoire. “We will perform pieces inspired by melodies from different parts of Anatolia. A directory linking the east, the region of Erzurum, to the coast of the Aegean Sea in the west”, explained the two musicians before the opening of the doors of the show. It will be a spellbinding beautiful escape, a scintillating path of delicate improvisations and musical grace that will delight the entire audience.
Enchanting skill
Both have already exercised their enchanting talent many times. Derya Türkan is one of the most eminent players of kamanche, the small bowed fiddle whose sound (“It sounds like a human voice”) immediately seduced him, when as a child he heard it for the first time in Istanbul, his hometown, played by the man who would become his master, Ihsan Ozgen (1942-2021). In addition to his own albums, Derya Türkan has crossed his bow with many talents from other musical planets than his own, in particular the Norwegian jazz pianists Jon Balke and Tord Gustavsen or the French double bass player Renaud Garcia-Fons, with whom he recorded Silk Moon (2014) and more recently The Breath of the Strings, for which Garcia-Fons received the Grand Prix Sacem du jazz 2021.
Born in a village far from everything and without electricity, in the province of Erzurum, Erdal Erzincan, player of baglama, a long-necked lute of the saz family, joined Istanbul very young. He wanted there “to discover the traditions of regions other than one’s own”, confides to us the formidable and very inventive musician whom many discovered with the Iranian kamanche player Kayhan Kalhor, with whom he recorded two dazzling albums: The Wind (2006) and Is It Worthwhile To Worship Your Ear? (2013). If the baglama, over time, has found its place as a solo instrument, it has long accompanied the voice of the ashiq, the bard popular poets who once beat the countryside, from village to village. On stage, Erdal Erzincan sings poignant serene serenades.
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