ISTANBUL SLIDESHOW

REGISTER NOW!

DATES: MARCH 30 - APRIL 8, 2010
COST: 1,400 Euros
INCLUDED: Airport transfers, Hotel with breakfast and refreshments all day, one main meal per day, all activities mentioned above.
NOT INCLUDED: airfare, airport taxes, travel insurance, visas (20$ for US citizens, available at the airport, free for EC citizens), extra activities, private music lessons, extra meals, tips for musicians at your discretion.
MAXIMUM NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 15 participants
REGISTRATION: 500 Euros is due upon registration. The full sum is due by February 1st. In the US you can send me a personal check in dollars. In the rest of the world you can make a bank transfer to my German account. PayPal is also possible. If you pay in dollars we will calculate the exchange rate at the time of the trip...so be prepared to adjust for any fluctuation in the exchange rate. I will send payment information with the registration forms as an email attachment at your request.

Music and Dance
Study Tour to Istanbul with Helene Eriksen
and Sinan Erdemsel

We will be accompanied by my friend and colleague Sinan Erdemsel, an oud player par excellence. Sinan comes from a family of sufi musicians. Currently, he is a member of T.T.M.T. (Turkish Historical Music Band), a group founded by the Turkish Ministry of Culture to preserve ancient Ottoman Music. With T.T.M.T. he has traveled to Japan, Holland, Austria, Germany and Tunisia. If you would like to "meet" Sinan you can visit him on his web site www.oudist.com

Here's the program I have set up for us and İnşallah this is how it will go. Please allow for some spontaneous changes...this means the order of the events change as needed and we like to take advantage of any special opportunities that come up! We may also provide extra special events at an extra charge as they come up. If you would like us to set up private lessons for music or dance just let me know.

Our Itinerary

Day 1: Arrival
Arrival {preferably by the early afternoon}. To start with, the hotel where we will be staying is worth the trip all on it's own. The Kybele is a little gem of a specıal category hotel in the middle of the old Ottoman/Byzantine part of town Sultanahmet. It is a 2 minute walk to the Aya Sofia and 4 minutes to the Topkapı palace. The hotel is run by my Turkish friend "Mike" that I have known for 15 years. He is a collector of Anatolian and Central Asian textiles and the hotel is stuffed with antiques, textiles, little lamps, etc. It's even more special to me because 22 years ago, before Mike's family bought it, I worked and lived there.

In the evening we will walk down to the Train station Sirkiçi by the docks to attend a Mevlevi concert {sufi music and whirling dervishes with women} in the beautiful grand salon of the train station. This will be followed by a welcome dinner in a restaurant built inside the ancient Byzantine Cisterns.

Day 2: Introductions
We will take a short introductory stroll around our neighborhood. Then we will have a folk dance workshop with a professional folk dance teacher.

In the afternoon Sinan will give us a small talk introducing us to the various different styles of Turkish music...particularly those that we will be encountering on our adventure. The talk will take place in Mikes "hangout". It is so filled with interesting textiles, carpets and jewelry that I hope you will be able to concentrate on the lecture! In the evening we will stroll down İstiklal Caddesi, the grand European center of 19th century Istanbul. Today it houses fashionable clothing stores, exclusive confectioners, nice restaurants and....lots of good music stores! Saturday is the evening to take a stroll here...every one is out for a good time. We will have dinner in the Çiçek Pasajı {Flower Passage}, famous for it's strolling Roma musicians and wonderful meze. A great opportunity to get up and dance or watch the locals show their stuff.

Day 3: Rhythm Workshop, Tünel, Galata Tekke
Sinan and I will conduct a small workshop on rhythms in Mike's hangout. We will especially concentrate on the 9/8 rhythm "Roman", which we will need later in the week for our Roma dance workshop. Then we will head up to the end of İstiklal Caddesi called Tünel which is full of music stores...instruments and recordings. Sinan will be glad to help people in buying instruments. We will then go to the Galata Tekke {dervish monastery} for a Mevlana Sema...this is sufi music in it's original setting.

Tünel gets it's name from a little tram in a tunnel that goes steeply down the hill. Built in 1875 it is one of the oldest metros in the world. We will take this little tram down and hop on a ferry to take a stroll in Kaıköy on the Asian side of town. Then if we manage to time it right we will do my favorite thing: come back on the ferry, drink tea and watch the sun set over the most incredible skyline in the world: the minarets of Aya Sofia and the Sultanahmet mosque.

Then it's back up the hill with our tram and on to an evening of great food in the caverns of the Victoria restaurant...with very special house muscians...including our very own Sinan!

Day 4: Grand Bazaar, Kum Kapı
In the morning we will have another folk dance workshop.

In the afternoon we will have the special opportunity to accompany Mike into the depths of the Kapalı Çarşı, Istanbul's grand bazaar. Mike will lead us away from the tourist traps to the special places where he buys his treasures. If we have time we can also visit the book sellers and miniature paintings. The main drag of the bazaar is also mind boggling with it's dazzling TONS of gold jewelry on display.

In the evening we will go to Kum Kapı, a part of town full of special fish restaurants and Roma musicians.

Day 5: Topkapı, Ebru workshop
In the morning we will visit the Topkapı Museum, Treasury and Harem accompanied by a professional archaeologist. Prepare to be overwhelmed by such treasures as a pair of gold candle sticks as tall as me, set with 6,666 diamonds each, or emeralds as big as your fist, or hairs from the beard of the prophet Mohammed {puh}. Afterward we will relax over lunch in Caferağa Medresesi, a Quran school built in 1559 by Sinan, the Ottoman Empire's most famous architect. Today it houses a school for traditional arts. So, following lunch, we will have a workshop in Ebru...Ottoman paper marbling.

The evening will be free to explore our lovely neighborhood on your own...perhaps döner kebap in a fast food restaurant or a more elaborate meal in one of the open air restaurants lining the Hippodrome?

Day 6: Byzantine Cisterns, Roman workshop
This morning we will visit the Byzantine Cisterns right next to the hotel and then visit the Aya Sophia, built in 537 by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, then converted to a mosque in 1493 by the Ottomans and converted again in 1935 by Atatürk into a museum. We will be accompanied once again by our archaeologist guide.

In the afternoon we will have a 4 hour workshop in Roman dance in the Caferağa Medresesi with Reyhan Tuzsuz, a very very sweet woman and wonderful dancer and wife of a violinist. This is the best of the real thing!!!

Having learned the basics of Roman we will spend the evening in Badehane, a little hole-in-the-wall bar/restaurant with good home style cooking and one of Turkey's most famous Roma clarinetists -- Selim Sesler. Be prepared to dance!

Day 7: Eyüp Sultan, Sinan's Family's House
We will spend today in Eyüp Sultan, at the upper end of the Golden Horn. We will start by visiting Minia Türk, where we can see all of Istanbul in miniature. We will visit the holy mosque of Eyüp Sultan. Eyüp was the banner carrier of the prophet Mohammed {PUH} and is said to be buried here. It is the most holy place in Istanbul and many important personalities of the Ottoman Empire have been buried here.

Then we will visit Miniatürk (a minature model of Turkey) and the cafe that the French writer Pierre Loti {1850-1923} used to frequent on the hill overlooking the Golden Horn.

In the afternoon we will go to Sinan's family's house...a very special place. It is a Türbe {mausoleum} and Tekke {Sufi monastery} of the Sinani order. His family has lived in this spot for 450 years. The house is full of paintings by his grandmother, the wife of the last great sheihk of the order...a sweet lady who we will meet. In the house we will have a singing workshop with Sinan's brother Faruk, also a professional musician with a golden voice. Following a dinner cooked by Sinan's mother we will have a small house concert of İlahi {religious songs}.

Day 8: Free day, Fasıl Music at Night
Finally a free day! You could sleep...but there are more corners of the bazaar to explore, palaces to visit, delicacies to taste! In the evening we will convene for a dinner in an elegant restaurant on the Istiklal Caddesi with Fasıl music -- the singer is also a very refined percusionist.

Day 9: Bosporus Boat Party, Gazino
On our last day we will rent our own boat and have a party with all our friends and Roma musicians, while sailing along the Bosporus and munching on snacks baked by Sinan's mother. In April this should be spectacular!

In the evening we will go to a Gazino with a floor show including Oryantal and Folk dancing.

Day 10: Departure
Even though we now realize there are still a million things to see it's time to leave...