Akbar stayed on stage for more than two hours for her recital, during which she played an assortment of her own solo piano and orchestral pieces, which she composed after she relocated to Turkey, as well as a small selection of both well-known and less heard of piano pieces by Turkish composers who have influenced her, such as Ulvi Cemal Erkin, Cemal Reşit Rey, İlhan Baran and Ali Darmar.Akbar's CKM appearance was the first in her new series of concerts called “İçimdeki Türkiyem” (My Turkey Inside of Me), which precedes the release of her upcoming album and an accompanying book of the same name. In the narrated concert, Akbar recounted anecdotes and memories from her times in Turkey since the mid-1990s, relating each piece on the program with a personal experience or one that affected Turkey or the entire world, such as the Marmara earthquake of 1999 and the war in Kosovo.
“As you might have noticed, here we have a set design that resembles a living room, with a chair and a coffee table and a reading light, and here I also have my small notebook, on which I will note down my feelings after each concert in this series,” Akbar told the audience as she started her performance.
“So please think of this concert as though I am playing host to each of you at a tea party at my house, only I am not able to serve tea,” she said.
The prolific Kazakhstan-born Turkish virtuoso, who has composed more than 400 scores for symphonic and chamber music, instrumental and ethnic classical groups, will complete her book with up-to-date observations and anecdotes she is hoping to amass during her planned concert series that will take her to numerous Anatolian cities, although the exact dates and locations have yet to be announced.
