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Gayda İstanbul brings warm breeze from Balkans
Gayda İstanbul, an İstanbul-based Balkan music ensemble founded under the roof of the Boğaziçi Performing Arts Company (BGST), which also gave birth to the acclaimed ethnic folk ensemble Kardeş Türküler, is responsible for this warm front that moved into Turkey earlier this summer with its self-titled debut studio album released in June through Kalan Music. And their motto is: “It's not always cold fronts that come from the Balkans.”
Gayda İstanbul is a musical journey that stretches from the Balkans to Thrace and from there to İstanbul. The group's warm sound is the result of an amalgamation of the traditional instruments of Balkan (or more accurately, Roma) music -- the violin, clarinet, accordion, trumpet and darbuka -- with electric guitar, bass guitar and drums.
Fehmiye Çelik, one of the vocalists of Kardeş Türküler, is the lead singer of Gayda İstanbul, which aims to create a new style through innovative experimentation. Apart from traditional folk songs with new arrangements, the album also includes original music and lyrics by the group's members. Çelik and Ayhan Akkaya, the two architects of the project, spoke with Today's Zaman about Gayda İstanbul.
Akkaya says Gayda İstanbul is the outcome of BGST's efforts to serve as "an alternative music school." Singing “only one or two songs from each different language spoken on this land with Kardeş Türküler did not suffice,” Akkaya explains.
Although their debut album focuses on Balkan and Thracian music, and more specifically on Roma music, Akkaya says they are planning on shifting their focus to Turkmen, Kurdish, Azerbaijani, Circassian and Armenian music in upcoming albums.
Akkaya and Çelik have been working on Balkan and Roma music for the last two years. “We had to conduct very intense research in the area and [music] resources to be able to grasp what was in the background of this music,” Akkaya explains. During those two years, they met many Roma musicians, and this was also how they formed the Gayda İstanbul orchestra.
‘Seventy-two-and-a-half nations’
Çelik says they set off with an idea of cultural pluralism in their minds, intently researching the specific location covered in the CD's track list. And while working on the project, the musicians also conducted a number of interviews with Roma people. Çelik says she cannot forget one specific interview conducted with a Roma lady in İstanbul who collects paper for recycling. “They're living right next to us; in Kağıthane, Kuştepe [districts of İstanbul] … in slums, in isolated places. But we pretend they don't exist,” Çelik says, voicing her feelings about the Roma people of İstanbul.
The Roma are the main inheritors of Balkan music in Turkey, says Akkaya. “[When playing with large ensembles,] they [Roma] usually remain in the background; they cannot play their own music too often, but rather play tunes that people love. With this album, we tried to bring forth their own music in their own language,” he explains.
“You know, there's a saying that goes, ‘Seventy-two-and-a-half nations live on this land.' The ‘half' in that saying refers to the Roma. This album is a critical look toward this perception. These people too have their own concerns, and they have their own lives. By way of this album, we wanted to put them under the spotlight.”
The Balkans as a land evokes a sense of bitterness in general. But although most of the songs on the album have satirical and meaningful lyrics, the tunes are predominantly dynamic and cheerful. Before releasing the recordings as an album, Gayda İstanbul played a concert to see whether their music appeals to the audiences' appetite. After seeing that concertgoers reacted most to the lively songs in the program, they decided to include a selection of those energetic tunes on the album.
“The Balkans is a land that has gone through many pains, but just like in Latin [America], it is a land where people react to sorrow with joy and enthusiasm. You can feel this enthusiasm even in their most sorrowful songs. [There are] many layers [in their songs], and you cannot understand these unless you actually go and live among them. We have indeed shouldered a very heavy task,” Akkaya says.
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