Turkey’s Beethoven Year 2020

The Istanbul Music Festival has been delighting audiences for over 40 years now as the largest event in the Turkish classical music calendar. Since 2011 the festival has also dedicated itself to contemporary music issuing composition commissions to Arvo Pärt, Giya Kancheli, Peteris Vasks, Alexander Raskatov, Fazıl Say and Tigran Mansurian. To mark Beethoven’s anniversary year in 2020 the Istanbul Music Festival has commissioned a work for choir and orchestra to the Turkish composer Hasan Uçarsu. Inspired by Beethoven’s love of nature and humanity the premiere will be held in June 2020, performed by the Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra and the Turkish State Choir. Hasan Uçarsu will set to music five pieces of poetry from Asu by Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca (1914-2008) that deal not only with the exuberance of nature but also with humankind and life in society as its basis. Born in Istanbul in 1965, Hasan Uçarsu is seen as one of the country’s most important composers. He is Professor of Composition at the Mimar Sinan Üniversitesi. The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation will be supporting the festival’s composition commission.

Further Information:
muzik.iksv.org