http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I5jUJeyBKI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY5Y1xH2_h0&feature=user

Musician Kudsi Erguner attracts the attention of masses all around the world with the ney (reed flute) that he brings to life with his breath. The artist believes that music should not be entertainment but make people think. . .

Erguner has played various kinds of music, and has an album called “Islam Blues.” Erguner drew attention that the word Blues recalls strangeness, loneliness and nostalgia. Mentioning that western civilization excludes what doesn't resemble itself, he thinks that Turkish Muslims in particular have started to lose their identities to gain acceptance by the west.

“Works for Rumi in Turkey are not sincere”

The famous ney player says, “Muslim intellectuals are trying to protect a depleted civilization” and that it's no good for anyone to pretend that the non existing values are alive. He defined Turkey's attempts on Mevlevism and Mevlana as fraud. Erguner mentioned that the Mevlevi houses were closed as establishments in 1925.

Erguner thinks that Turkish society has become a society which goes where the wind blows like a leaf due to political and cultural breakthroughs. He mentions that the Turkish intellectual does not go beyond the orientalist perspective in approaching ney playing and that in the world, ney playing is considered an art.

Erguner presents the aesthetics of eastern music in many projects he undertook. He mentioned the importance of the Islamic world and especially Turkey, realizing its own values and introducing them to the world. Erguner includes Classical Ottoman music and Sufi music as well as his musical identity in his compositions.

Islam Blues

“The word Blues recalls strangeness, loneliness and nostalgia. As much as this word is valid for black people who were gathered from Africa and forced into slavery, it's also valid for believers who can't find themselves a place in this world,” says the famous ney player and explains that these were the reasons he composed his album as Islam Blues. The artist has seven long compositions in the Islam Blues album.

No east-west synthesis in music

Erguner has works on Istanbul's Greek Composers. Erguner especially avoids discrimination of ethnic origins and defines the Armenian, Greek and Jewish musicians of the Ottoman Empire as Ottoman composers and believes the importance of them being introduced to the world music arena.

The artist defends that ethnic origins are not important and he doesn't like the idea of east-west synthesis in music. Erguner said, “I don't believe in rootless and reasonless fusions, the word synthesis doesn't reflect my perception.” Erguner had interpreted Goethe's “East-West Anthology” accompanied by muezzins at the Passion kirche in Berlin in recent years and was highly appreciated. The artist also combined some poems by the famous Nazim Hikmet with music.

Ney according to Sufi Philosophy

Erguner has been living in Paris for many years and aside from his ney playing identity, he's also known as a composer and musicologist. It was due to his family that Erguner was so willing to play the ney. He learned how to play the ney from his grandfather and father. He said that being a ney player is also accepted as the attainment of Sufism status in Mevlevi culture. In Mevlana's Mesnevi, in the metaphor established between ney and humans, the ney defines the mature human and the ney player defines the person giving life to it with his breath.

According to the philosophy, while the ney finds life with the breath of the ney player, the ney player surrenders to God and his inspiration. Although Erguner comes from the Sufi tradition, he did not stay away from the modern world. He was involved in many projects with names such as Peter Gabriel, Maurie Bejart, Peter Brook, Georges Aperghis, Didier Lockood and Michel Portal and other world famous artists. Aside from theater music, Erguner has been in over 60 albums and he holds many concerts in Europe.



http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2007/06/1778-peaceful-sound-of-ney-echoes-in.html

Zeytinburnu
was first settled by a community of Greeks who moved out of the city following the Turkish conquest, these 'priests of Jerusalem', being less willing to adapt to life under Turkish rule than those Greek communities that stayed in the city. The land they occupied was later taken over by the Turkish state.

From the early 1800s onwards Zeytinburnu was an industrial village, centred on the leather industry of the area called Kazlıçeşme, which being on the coast with a good water supply was well suited to leather production. (the area was named for a fountain with a goose carved into the stonework, the fountain is still in existence, but the goose has disappeared). Up until the mid-20th century the residents were an urban mix of Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, Jews and Turks and still today the Surp Pirgic Armenian hospital is active in Kazlıçeşme, and has a museum in the grounds
The character of Zeytinburnu changed when a large wave of immigrants from Anatolia came and settled there from 1950 on. Zeytinburnu is an important lesson for city planing in Turkey, because it was one of the first Gecekondu districts. In other words most of the buildings were built illegally, without infrastructure, and without any aesthetical concern. In the 1960s legislation was passed to prevent this type of building but by then this type of development had become unstoppable. At first these were little brick-built single storey cottages. From the 1970s onwards the little houses were replaced by multi-storey concrete apartment blocks built in rows with no space in between. In most cases the ground floor was used as a small textile workshop, and thus Zeytinburnu became a bustling industrial area with a large residential population living above the workshops. All this was still illegal and unplanned and still lacked the infrastructure and the aesthetics. After a heavy rain the streets would run with dirty water for days.


Zeytinburnu today
The leather industry has largely moved out to Tuzla now but the rows of six-storey blocks of housing and textiles remains. Although some improvements have been made to the streets and drainage the area still has a reputation for being the home of tough men and uncontrollable youths who drive around in cars blasting out pop music at high-volume. Possibly this is exaggerated nowadays, and steps are being taken to smarten up the area. Most residents are working class, recent migrants from Anatolia, typically lacking in education. However, the younger generations are more educated thus changing the shape of zeytinburnu.


To integrate the district with the rest of Istanbul, the municipality has improved the transportation by extending the modern tram line to Zeytinburnu, and the main tram station is now at the intersection of fast tram lines leading to Atatürk International Airport, Istanbul's inter-city coach station and the old city in Eminönü. Other important projects have improved the transportation, life quality and the economics of the district. Olivium Outlet Center was opened in 2000, a modern shopping mall with cinemas, but with many shops specialising in factory surpluses, this has brought new shopping opportunities for the people of Zeytinburnu and surrounding districts, it's very crowded at weekends.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeytinburnu

Hejar (Büyük Adam Küçük Ask) (2003)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2003/01/22/hejar_2003_review.shtml

NOT TURKISH, but excellent!
The Namesake (2006

Great Fire of Smyrna

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Smyrna#Mustafa_Kemal.27s_telegram


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_%281919-1922%29

Dinner for One

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6UtT8NDW8Q

Elisabeth, so very funny, enjoy all his shows, thanks for sharing M.P.

John Cleese's (John Parker) humor is unbeatable!

What a wonderful idea, TURQuazman. So very nice of you!!

Cultural Kinship Between the Turkish People of Asia and the Native Peoples of Americas

http://ireland.iol.ie/~afifi/Articles/turkic.htm

SUPER SLIDE SHOW

http://www.turkishculture.org/slide/slide.html

Turkish is a very ancient language and belongs to the Altaic branch of the Ural-Altaic family of languages.
Altaic is believed to have originated in the high lands around the Altay Mountains of Central Asia. More than 90 percent of all contemporary speakers of Altaic languages speak a Turkish language. The peoples of this region led a nomadic life. Turks, too, for centuries being nomads, took their language along whereever they moved. The Turkish language now stretches from the Mongolian lands and China to the present day Turkey. The far eastern border of the language now is where once the Turkish people have originated from.

The Turkish language at present is being heavily spoken in the following countries and regions: Turkey, Northern Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Ozbekistan, Turkistan, Kazakistan, Kirgizistan, Tajikistan and so on.

EXCELLENT SOURCE, HERE YOU CAN TRACE IT:

http://www.turkishculture.org/pages.php?ParentID=3&ID=124