We have just released a new web application that lets users create their own version of the opening piece “Permanence” of the CD “Listening to Istanbul”. CreatePermanence web application includes listeners in the process of making music. “You can listen to many improvisations and musical gestures that I recorded specifically for this website and then remix them on a timeline at certain points in the compositions,” says Seda Röder, who has been described as “the master of avant-garde pianism” by piano legend Alfred Brendel. “Permanence” by the Turkish composer Tolga Tüzün is written in open form and consists of composed segments and improvisational sections that can be played in an order chosen by the performer. The web application features improvisations that were recorded for “Listening to Istanbul”, plus additional ones that were intended specifically for this web application. With this web application you can re-arrange these segments and improvisations, and change the sonic path of the piece. After you are done, you can download your own version of “Permanence” free of charge.
Inspired by post-spectral as well as computer-aided music Turgut Erçetin introduces a wide range of sonic novelties into his first solo piano piece Drifting through the Echoes of Time. These sounds are produced by alternative playing techniques, such as plucking the strings of the piano, whistling into the piano, as well as by a small device called E-Bow that creates long resonances when brought into close proximity with a piano string. The piece explores the tranquil flow of time and contains excerpts from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke (Mein Leben ist nicht diese steile Stunde) that sets the mesmerizing and serene tone of the entire work.
By the end of the 19th century we already start seeing composers like Berlioz and Debussy experimenting more and more with the characteristic sounds and colors of different instruments. As a natural result of thinking more in color and effects the instruments had to be forced to their sonic extremes, to create a new sound world. The composers started to explore and expand the sonic possibilities of instruments and pushed these to previously uncharted territories.
In this episode of Blackbox, I would like to give you a short introduction on the development of new playing techniques to create such new sounds. I will also show you a two examples for such interesting sounds from my own repertory: the “fishing line” section from “Lacrymae” by Murat Yakin and the “e-bow+mallet+plucking+whistling” section from “Drifting through the Echoes of Time” by Turgut Erçetin.
Excerpts from Seda’s upcoming CD “Listening to Istanbul” were featured prominently in a recent German radio show on the state of contemporary music in Turkey. The program, which was produced by the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation, closed with a long section from Özkan Manav’s “Movement 6,” a beautiful piece that brings microtonal inflections of Turkish makams to the concert piano.
You can download a copy of the program, which is authored by the German composer Klaus Hinrich Stahmer, here:
The Turkish composer Tolga Tüzün speaks about the compositional process that underlies his new piano piece “Permanence,” a piece he composed for the “Listening to Istanbul” Project and dedicated to me. I can’t wait to play this composition for the Listening to Istanbul project.
By the way, if you haven’t signed up to my mailing list yet, please do so. I’ll send around a notice once the recording is ready. And hopefully you will be able to come to one of the many concerts that we are planning as well!
We have just released a new web application that lets users create their own version of the opening piece “Permanence” of the CD “Listening to Istanbul”. CreatePermanence web application includes listeners in the process of making music. “You can listen to many improvisations and musical gestures that I recorded specifically for this website and then remix them on a timeline at certain points in the compositions,” says Seda Röder, who has been described as “the master of avant-garde pianism” by piano legend Alfred Brendel. “Permanence” by the Turkish composer Tolga Tüzün is written in open form and consists of composed segments and improvisational sections that can be played in an order chosen by the performer. The web application features improvisations that were recorded for “Listening to Istanbul”, plus additional ones that were intended specifically for this web application. With this web application you can re-arrange these segments and improvisations, and change the sonic path of the piece. After you are done, you can download your own version of “Permanence” free of charge. 
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