UK: LEADING TURKISH FOLK SINGER SABAHAT AKKIRAZ BRINGS HER UNIQUE SOUND TO BRITAIN

Record ID: 388681

  • Title: UK: LEADING TURKISH FOLK SINGER SABAHAT AKKIRAZ BRINGS HER UNIQUE SOUND TO BRITAIN
  • Date: 17th October 1999
  • Summary: AKKIRAZ PERFORMING
  • Embargoed: 1st November 1999 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Reuters ID: LVAE91P6PHRLJBS3BQ3MDIYFVQQK
  • Story Text: Leading Turkish Alevi folk singer Sabahat Akkiraz has brought her unique, authentic interpretations of Anatolian music to London audiences.Akkiraz, one of Turkey's best selling vocalists, says it is a childhood among the singers and poets, immersed in the stormy emotions of the Anatolian people, that has enabled her to forge such a successful career, which spans 12 albums.
    Akkiraz is performing in London as part of the "Women in Tradition" series at the Purcell room of the Royal Festival Hall.The series includes women musicians from India, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Morocco and Turkey.
    Sabahat Akkiraz prides herself on the authenticity of her sound.She owes this, she says, to living among poets and singers in her native Sivas, where large numbers of Alevis live.The Alevis, a moderate Islamic sect, use music and poetry in their religious rituals and many other daily activities.This tradition goes back thousands of years.At various times it has been a vehicle for political and social protest.
    "I am Anatolian, I am from Sivas.They call the place I was born the land of the folk poets and poet-musicians.That was our lifestyle...the harvest was collected to the sound of music, clothes were washed to the sound of music, people were buried with folk songs, prayers were said with saz and poetry," Akkiraz said."So I was born into a really good environment in the tradition of poetry and music -- I felt this.In my family there are poets, my siblings practise music...So I was very well prepared in this environment."
    "What I do best are the song-poems," she explains."These are very common in the music of the Alevis, in their prayers, their protests, their anger, their rebellions, their desparation...I think I capture these feelings best, probably because I am an Alevi."
    One of seven children, Akkiraz was born in a village in Sivas in 1958.Her father loved music and poetry, and many poets and writers, such as Yasar Kemal, and singer-musicians regularly visited their house.When she was young, her family moved to Germany with their father, who travelled there as one of the many Turkish and Balkan "guest worker"s invited by Bonn in the 1960s and 70s.
    Her interest in traditional music did not end there, however, and she returned to Turkey in 1982 to record her first album.It was a success, and she now has 12 albums to her name.
    Akkiraz aranges her own music, after much painstaking research in the villages of Anatolia, where she makes sure she gets a pure, first-hand rendition of local tunes.She has worked under many master musicians who specialise in Alevi and Anatolian music.
    "Because I believe that an artist must be creative, when I go to Anatolia I pay a lot of attention to arrangements.I don't know how to explain it, but when others go on holiday, I go to Anatolia in the summer and travel from region to region -- I have my own sources there -- I find my sources, and collect songs, arrange them, and include them in my albums, and in work I do with my friends or for TRT (Turkish state radio and television."
    Her dedication to the music is total.She has never married, as she has no time for a private life outside her singing.
    Akkiraz has increasingly tasted success abroad.She has performed in folk music festivals in Italy and France, sung at a film festival in Venezuela, filled a stadium in Cologne when she performed with the top Turkish saz musician, Arif Sag, and played at the London Jazz Festival.Projects for the future include three concerts in Paris in February and an appearance at London's Saddler's Wells Theatre in May.
    She performs with her brother Cemal, a successful saz player and teacher.
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