Turkish-Australian soprano Ayse Goknur Shanal and pianist Patrick Keith will perform a recital of songs by Australian, New Zealand and Turkish composers this week to commemorate the Gallipoli campaign.
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Cannakale-Gallipoli Songs will be presented at Armidale Uniting Church, 114 Rusden St, on Friday, April 26, at 7pm. Tickets cost $30 / $20, and are available at Trybooking: https://www.trybooking.com/BBJVG.
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The song cycles were first performed in April 2015, as a special Anzac Day concert. Ms Shanal commissioned them to mark the centenary of the Gallipoli landings in 1915. As a Australian with Turkish heritage, a native speaker of both languages, it was natural for her to include works from both sides of the campaign.
"Her intention was not just for commemoration, but also for these events not to happen again," Mr Keith said.
Australian composer Ross Fiddes, of Gunnedah, wrote a cycle of seven songs based on poetry from Leon Gellert, a Gallipoli soldier who wrote a large amount of poetry in the 1960s based on his experiences in Gallipoli. Wayne Dixon, also Australian, took two poems from Silvia Rice, whose son and husband were lost to war. (You can listen to the song cycle here.)
New Zealand-born Diana Blom used both Australian and Turkish sources to create a dramatic cycle which starts at enlisting in Sydney, and ends in Gallipoli when the guns have stopped. Turkish composer Erberk Eyilmaz's music is extreme, very rhythmic, and electric, with many Turkish folk song elements.
"It was significant to include works from composers from Australia, New Zealand, and Turkey to give a view from all sides," Mr Keith said. "It is not often that we consider Gallipoli from Turkey's point of view."
The Armidale concert is part of a series which starts in Australia before travelling to Germany in May. A performance at the Sydney Opera House earlier this month to an almost full house received a standing ovation.
"It was wonderful to observe the audience's reaction," Mr Keith said. "As we were in the middle of the recital, I could hear some of the audience crying during one of the songs, which is a measure of the emotional content of the music, by which they were quite taken and moved."
The program was presented at the Melbourne Recital Centre in 2018, which called it "the most outstanding program that we have had at the venue for a long time".
The pair hope to take the Gallipoli Songs to Gallipoli as part of the Anzac Day events for 2020. They have already performed in Turkey in 2017, including at Cannakale (Gallipoli) on Australia Day, 2017 to celebrate Australia Day and 50 years of diplomatic relations between the two nations.
Brisbane-born Ayse Goknur Shanal has performed in England, USA, Germany, France, Ireland, Japan, and Turkey. As the Dame Joan Sutherland Scholar, she studied at London's prestigious Royal College of Music and was an adjunct member of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Pianist Patrick Keith was born and grew up in Tamworth. He is an alumnus of the Tamworth Regional Conservatorium of Music, and a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.