Music scene Istanbul – Istanbul dreams

A television is a television and its programming is not a cultural doctrine. But sometimes trivial sign also sets. The program allocation in my Istanbul Hotel: CNN and Al Jazeera, Iranian and Russian broadcaster. Europeans cannot be found.

Germany may still be the number one export goal, but it seems that Turkey will turn away in recent years; also the culture. Example: Hamburg. Hundreds of different orchestras have played in the Elbphilharmonie since early 2017. But the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, Bipo for short, will appear in September as the first Turkish orchestra in the large hall of the concert hall. How can that be?

“What do you ask me?” Zeynep Kocabıyık Hamedi turns the palms up.

The woman with the laughs around her eyes and the feather tattooed on the back of the hand (“After difficult times, she reminded me that there are still easy things in life”) is the daughter of ASım Kocabıyık. Kocabıyık began in the steel business in 1944, and the industrial group Borusan, which he founded, is now working in various industries worldwide. According to the website, the company employs 14,000 people on three continents. It is rather not due to the Kocabıyıks that Turkish culture in Central Europe is often ignored.

Many also play jazz and pop, start rehearsals for a band in the morning and end the day after 10 p.m. with another.

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Borusan has been involved in a cultural foundation for decades, publishes art books, supports young music students and a children’s choir. And the group finances the bipo, one of the most renowned orchestras in Türkiye. The orchestra with up to 120 musicians developed out of a chamber orchestra around the turn of the millennium, already played in London and Brussels, headed by Italian conductor Carlo Tenan since 2024.

“My father worked his way up from a simple background,” says Zeynep Kocabıyık Hamedi, “he wanted to give something back to the country. He gave us his love for languages ​​and music. Are there any differences between East and West? Politicians may see it that way, but I’m not a politician. These people have the limits in their heads. “

The manager emphasizes the family character of her company. The gender ratio is even compensated for at the management level.

“Borusan is a dream for classic musicians,” says one who needs to know. Cenk Erdoğan is a guitarist of international rank and Grammy winner, plays jazz and rock, but also adaptations by Sergei Rachmaninov. The Istanbul native, whose surname often occurs in Turkey, knows almost everyone in bipo. He earned good money in bands of pop superstars like Sezen Aksu, but he says: The business has become tougher.

“Everyone wants to play for Borusan; You also have a music house in the city center with experimental concerts. It’s great, but you have to wait years to play a concert there, the waiting list is very long. «

The bipo draws from a pool of 300 musicians who are not employed and are dependent on other engagements as freelancers. Many also play jazz and pop, start rehearsals for a band in the morning and end the day after 10 p.m. with another. On top of that, many music lessons give-such jobs have been more important than ever since the Corona loss of income. At the beginning of March, Cenk Erdoğan played with his trio in a hotel bar in the trendy district of Beyoğlu.

Outside it smells of corn cob roasted on charcoal, there is not much going on inside – it is Ramadan. But the band really turns on, in all directions of open jazz with elements of blues and flamenco, the entire lobby of the hotel sounds.

Later I mention the sentence that a young Istanbuler told me. In the past ten years, Turkey has dressed up as a nearby country. Is the country aligning with the east? Instead of a direct answer, Cenk Erdoğan tells of a tour of the United States in 2019. »We were in the middle of it, Montana and such states, where almost all of Trump chose. The audience was thrilled, they said they would love our Middle Eastern music. That frustrated me because Turkey is not a nearby country! We have little in common with the Arab countries, our microtonal moods are very different. But the world sees it that way and it is exhausting to change this view. “

In contrast to most artists, Erdoğan can live well from his music in the 16 million city because he tours internationally. It is the happy owner of a five-year visa for the Schengen area-a rarity in Turkey. Erdoğan still criticizes the lack of support from the government; Only government officials and selected people get the promising gray passports. Visa allocation seems to be completely arbitrary, which the EU makes a major contribution to. Even Turkish with a job commitment in the Schengen area often have to wait longer than half a year for a visa, as a Borusan employee reports.

Meanwhile, the galloping inflation makes life difficult for all Turkish. The number of social welfare recipients has more than doubled in ten years. More than half of the population works on the minimum wage of the equivalent of 580 euros. The journalist Bülent Mumay regularly accuses the nepotism in the country in his “FAZ” column. “What you earn or lose money is determined by what relationship you are in the government,” he writes.

I carefully ask for artistic freedoms under an apparently almighty authoritarian-nationalist regime. Cenk Erdoğan says: “It’s not about being forbidden to us. But if you meet in the evening, you drink, and the conservatives don’t like that. Alcohol has become very expensive, which is bad for the clubs. And the Tikok generation doesn’t care about religion anyway, they only want to show themselves. “

My last evening in Istanbul shows me how much the people in Istanbul long for western influences. A friendly young man with round glasses knocks on the hotel’s room door; He came to give the TV an update. As the device loads, it leads Smalltalk and is enthusiastic about my German origin. “We would like to live like her, the influence of Islam is far too strong here. We are afraid that it will develop like in Syria. “

I steer the conversation on the music, and suddenly he explodes with enthusiasm. “Music is everything, music is a universal language, music is love!” The man says goodbye. I switch on the television and discover the ZDF in the 100 channels.

The research was made possible by supporting the Borusan Group.