Folk Music from Turkey

Indialogue Foundation (along with Select City Walk, Turkish Airlines and the Embassy of Turkey in India) presented in New Delhi the most amazing Turkish Fest in India: Turkish Fest 2012 New Delhi.

The Festival was held on Saturday March 24, 2012 and Sunday March 25, 2012 in the heart of New Delhi at Select City Walk Mall, Saket.

Activities at The New Delhi, Turkish Fest 2012:

• Live Turkish Music Performances: A variety of Turkish music groups will be performing on stage throughout the festival. Music will feature contemporary, folk, traditional and popular songs by Indian, international and local performers.

• Turkish Folk Dances: Professional and children Folk dance groups will be show cased performing dances from different regions of Turkey. Music and costumes are the essential parts of the traditional dances. During performances music, instruments and patterns of the region are preserved. Music is performed with traditional folk instruments.

• Whirling Dervish of Rumi Performance: One of the wonders of Turkey will perform one of the most exquisite ceremonies of spirituality, a mesmerizing seven-century old ritual, incredible performance featuring beautiful costumes, hypnotic music with flutes, string and percussion, and the amazing sight of the Dervishes whirling on the stage. The Mevlevi order has been established on the teachings of Mevlana Jalaladdeen Rumi, Rumi for short, in late 13th century. As a poet, Rumi has enjoyed enormous popularity in North America recently. The ritual unites the three fundamental components of human nature: the mind (as knowledge and thought), the heart (through the expression of feelings, poetry and music), and the body (by activating life, by turning). These three elements are thoroughly joined both in theory and in practice and as perhaps in no other ritual or system of thought. Celebrating Rumi's 800th birthday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) had announced the year 2007 as the year of Rumi.

• Mehterân, Ottoman Military Band: Mehterans are thought to be the oldest variety of military marching band in the world. It is believed that the first "mehter" was sent to Osman I by the Seljuk Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad III as a present along with a letter that salutes the newly formed state. From then on every day after the afternoon prayer; "mehter" played for the Ottoman ruler. The notion of a military marching band, such as those in use even today, began to be borrowed from the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. The sound associated with the mehterân also exercised an influence on European classical music, with composers such as Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven all writing compositions inspired by or designed to imitate the music of the mehters.

• Ney (Reed Flute) Performances: A rim-blown, oblique flute made of reed, the Ney has six finger-holes in front and a thumb-hole in back. Using cross-fingering, finger-hole shading, and embouchure adjustment, the journeyman player can produce any pitch over a two-and-a-half octave range or more. Nearly all Neys have a mouthpiece made of water buffalo horn, or sometimes ivory, ebony, plastic, or similar durable material.

Indialogue is an action and research-oriented dialogue and peace foundation, was founded in New Delhi in 2005, the imagination and fortune of a group of Turkish and Indian people inspired by Mevlana Jalal-ad-Din Rumi, to promote and to encourage local, national, international, inter-civilizational, intercultural, interfaith, intercommunal and inter-ethnic dialogue; Love, tolerance, understanding, reconciliation, harmony, co-existence, tranquillity and peace; to courage intellectuals and scholars and to provide opportunities for a comprehensive and deliberate thinking, brain-storming on humankind-related topics and issues; proactive studies and activities on the causes of wars and violent conflicts, develop tools for early recognition of tensions, and formulate conflict mitigation and peace-building strategies.