Thursday Classic: Şirin Pancaroğlu

September 29, 2022

Thursday, 1 December

12:30

Library

 

Journey to the Self

Praised by the Washington Post as a “major talent of international caliber”, harpist Şirin Pancaoğlu was trained a classical musician, but was also praised for her work in Turkish traditional music, improvisation, tango and avant-garde music. Regular collaborations with performers and composers of diverse backgrounds have led Pancaroğlu to cross boundaries between musical styles often resulting in music that has been perceived as opening the path to new genres. Recognized for her multifaceted artistic personality, Pancaroğlu has released 12 albums in Turkey and around the world. After living abroad for twenty years, she returned to Turkey in 2000, she has been in search of her “roots”, presenting a subtle fusion of the local and the global in her musical projects. After working on resurrecting the historical Ottoman-Turkish harp “çeng”, Pancaroğlu also conducted work involving lever and pedal harps, sharing the outcome of this work in concerts and album releases, as well as in a sheet music collection titled “The Turkish Harp”, which she edited, and which includes her own arrangements. Focusing on her composition work in 2022, the artist will be releasing a series of twelve compositions on a monthly basis throughout the September 2022 – September 2023 season under the title “Alâim-Semâ”, beginning with the fist composition, “The Cry of Flamingos”. In this concert bearing the theme of “Journey to the Self”, Pancaroğlu will be performing her arrangements from a range of musical cultures. Foregrounding melodic structures in this concert, the artist will be performing a repertoire that also includes her own compositions, sharing the warm timbre of the harp with the audience as she travels across different musical geographies.