Fall 2016
Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol & Whatsnext? CD Release Concerts
featuring Dave Liebman and Tiger Okoshi
Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol & Whatsnext? Is now getting ready to release their new album, “Resolution”. Whatsnext?, Sanlıkol’s genre-busting jazz orchestra, performs his compositions which seek to create a sophisticated and cosmopolitan synthesis incorporating elements of Turkish, European and American musical traditions. Sanlıkol’s blend of jazz composition and Turkish music has been praised by the Boston Globe as “a true fusion of jazz and folkloric Turkish language and colors” – and it is the further development and maturation of this “true fusion” that is the basis for the current project.
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Othello in the Seraglio: The Tragedy of Sümbül the Black Eunuch
A powerful encounter of Europe and Ottoman Turkey
Othello in the Seraglio, a uniquely powerful “coffeehouse opera,” tells an age-old story of passionate love and murderous jealousy, of a Black slave at the 17th century Ottoman Court who rises to power and riches, only to come to a tragic end. The multi-layered script is by NEC music historian Robert Labaree, while the stunning score, by Boston composer and Grammy nominee Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol, weaves together Italian Baroque and Turkish sources with his own newly-composed music into a tapestry of uncanny beauty. Othello is performed on European period instruments and traditional Turkish instruments by an ensemble of 12 instrumentalists, singers and a dramatic storyteller.
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Spring & Summer 2016
A powerful encounter of Europe and Ottoman Turkey
Othello in the Seraglio, a uniquely powerful “coffeehouse opera,” tells an age-old story of passionate love and murderous jealousy, of a Black slave at the 17th century Ottoman Court who rises to power and riches, only to come to a tragic end. The multi-layered script is by NEC music historian Robert Labaree, while the stunning score, by Boston composer and Grammy nominee Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol, weaves together Italian Baroque and Turkish sources with his own newly-composed music into a tapestry of uncanny beauty. Othello is performed on European period instruments and traditional Turkish instruments by an ensemble of 12 instrumentalists, singers and a dramatic storyteller.