Ethnomusicologist To Perform Love Music of The Ottoman Middle East at Zankel Nov. 16
Depiction of Ottoman musicians. Photo provided.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Ethnomusicologist, performer, and educator Joseph Alpar explores the intertwined histories of Jews, Muslims, and Christians in the Ottoman Empire through music at Skidmore College’s Arthur Zankel Music Center.
The event – free and open to the public, takes place 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16, at Arthur Zankel Music Center’s Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall
The central theme of the concert, Aşk: Music, Love, and Mysticism in the Ottoman World, is love — aşk in Turkish (pronounced ah-shk) — in all its forms. It will feature poignant songs of unrequited desire, lyrical wedding ballads about marital loyalty, bawdy tunes delighting in infidelity, driving Sufi and Jewish mystical songs about divine and earthly beloveds, and musical vignettes of everyday courtship, relationships, and separation.