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Baturay Yarkın Trio & Nağme Yarkın “The Colours of Anatolia”
Baturay Yarkın has meticulously combined jazz music with Anatolian music in his project The Colours of Anatolia. He has arranged Anatolian song forms for his jazz trio and Nağme Yarkın’s Kemence of İstanbul.
Turkey has an important role when it comes to music that is based on improvisation. Especially gazels, call and response duets, unmetered folk songs and taksims have major roles in the music of these lands. The Western music genres use the term improvisation, which it is one of the most important factors in jazz music. The main aim of this project is to bring awareness to the realities of different musical genres using a common musical element (improvisation) and to transfer this idea to the audience.
The rich melodic and rhythmic sources of Ottoman-Turkish Music combined with Baturay’s arrangements for his jazz trio and Kemence of Istanbul are essential factors for The Colours of Anatolia. Baturay Yarkın Trio & Nağme Yarkın, which underlines the importance of multicultural communication performed in the 21. İstanbul Jazz Festival, the prominent festivals in The Netherlands, Croatia, Italy, England and the U.S.A. and continues to perform in Turkey and abroad. The band completed its national tour in 15 universities, which took place in 12 different cities in 2017 with the support of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The project was performed at Borusan Music House in 2018-2019.
Nağme and Baturay Yarkın travelled to Indianapolis and worked with world-known musicians such as Sandeep Das, Wu Man and Shane Shanahan joining the Silk Road’s (established by Yo YoMa) Global Musician Workshop with a scholarship in 2017. They gave special concerts in Milano as the Silk Road Global Musician European Ambassador in 2017 and 2018. They were invited to the U.S.A. to perform as Yarkın Duo and give workshops by the Silk Road’s GMW in 2018.
Pianist Baturay Yarkın and Kemence of Istanbul player Nağme Yarkın recorded with double bass player and bass guitarist Enver Muhamedi and drummer Burak Cihangirli for The Colours of Anatolia. Fahrettin Yarkın, Murat Salim Tokaç, Yurdal Tokcan and Gürkan Çakmak were guest artists.
