CMO Events in Istanbul

On  06 and 07 March 2017, CMO realized an event consisting of a specialized workshop and presentations for the wider scholarly audience.

The first day was dedicated to a workshop on post-Byzantine notation, which plays a pivotal role in Ottoman music history. Dr. Kyriakos Kalaitzidis (musicologist and director of the ensemble En Chordais) and Asst. Prof. Dr. Thomas Apostolopoulos (University of Athens) presented their project funded by the Onassis Foundation. The project deals with the critical edition of mainly Ottoman art music in Greek liturgical notation, an extensive corpus of crucial importance, hitherto almost unresearched. Apart from the project directors Prof. Dr. Ralf Martin Jäger and Prof. Dr. Raoul Motika and the CMO research staff from both Münster and Istanbul, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Cenk Güray from Yıldırım Beyazıt Üniversity Ankara joined as a guest. Following exciting discussions between the experts, plans for a future integration of both projects were specified.

On the second day, the colleagues from Münster presented major contentual and conceptual aspects of CMO under the title “Corpus Musicae Ottomanicae: New Approaches to the Critical Edition of Manuscripts in Hampartsum Notation”. The aim of this event was to raise awareness, create interest among scholars and students and possibly also to gain new partners for future cooperation.

At the invitation of the spokesperson of the academic advisory board Prof. Songül Karahasanoğlu, the lecture series was first given at the musicological institute of İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi. Following a general introduction by Prof. Dr. Ralf Martin Jäger, the CMO members’ talks were dedicated to the topics “Transcribing Hampartsum Notation into Staff Notation” (Jacob Olley), “Critical Commentary” (Ersin Mıhçı) and  “The CMO Text Edition” (Dr. Malek Sharif). The event met with great interest among the students. In the audience we also welcomed Professors Şehvar Beşiroğlu and Nilgün Doğrusöz-Dişiaçık (both İTÜ) as well as the renowned ney player Asst. Prof. Dr. Süleyman Erguner (İTÜ).

The second event of the day, which took place at the Research Institute for Turcology (Türkiyat Araştırmaları Enstitüsü) of İstanbul Üniversitesi following the invitation of Prof. Dr. Fikret Turan, focused on the literary and linguistic aspects of the project. Presentations on “Ottoman Music Manuscripts in Armenian Script: Historical and Linguistic Characteristics” (Jacob Olley), “The Critical Edition of Ottoman Vocal Music” (Ersin Mıhçı) and “The CMO Text Edition” (Dr. Malek Sharif) led to productive discussions and exchange of ideas with the specialists in the audience.