Beyoğlu Culture Route Festival Begins on 30 September...
Istanbul will be the 8th stop of the Turkey Culture Route Festivals organised by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The Beyoğlu Culture Route Festival, which will begin on 30 September, will end on 15 October.
The Beyoğlu Culture Route Festival, the starting point of the Turkey Culture Route Festivals organised by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to contribute to Turkey’s international brand value, is being held for the fourth time this year.
The Turkey Culture Route Festivals, launched to establish an international culture and arts brand for Turkey, began in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district in 2021. This year, the Beyoğlu Culture Route Festival – the eighth stop in a festival marathon of around 100 days during which more than 4,000 events are planned across 11 different cities, at more than 500 venues, with the participation of nearly 30,000 artists under the name of the Turkey Culture Route Festivals – will continue until 15 October.
WORLD-RENOWNED ARTISTS TO TAKE THE STAGE IN ISTANBUL
As part of the Beyoğlu Culture Route Festival, leading names in world music will take the stage at the AKM Türk Telekom Opera Hall. The Mariinsky Orchestra, one of the world’s most established and prolific rare arts ensembles with its 240-year history, will perform for the first time in the renovated AKM building under the direction of conductor Valery Gergiev as part of the Beyoğlu Culture Route Festival.
At the festival, the Tunisian protest artist, composer, guitarist and soloist Emel Mathlouthi, who blends traditional melodies with electro and trip hop, Benin-born Angelique Kidjo, known as the Diva of Africa, and Riff Cohen, who has produced successful songs in the folk music genre, will give concerts as part of the 5th International Istanbul Folk Music Festival, while Bosnian-Herzegovinian artist Dino Merlin will appear before his fans. Gilbert Varga, who began his music career with violin training received at the age of 4 from his father, the famous violinist Tibor Varga, and who has conducted many orchestras in Germany and France, will take the stage with the İzmir State Symphony Orchestra.
A MAGNIFICENT OPENING FOR THE FESTIVAL
The Beyoğlu Culture Route Festival will open with a magnificent performance by the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet. At the “Opening Night” – where the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet will appear before art lovers as a whole, with its soloists, solo dancers, orchestra, choir and the dancers of the “Modern Dance Ensemble Istanbul” Project, with İbrahim Yazıcı as orchestra conductor and Volkan Akkoç as choir conductor – selections from the operas Fidelio, Don Giovanni, I Puritani, Il Trovatore, Yevgeni Onegin, Lucia di Lammermoor, Otello, Cavalleria Rusticana, Aida, Nabucco, Faust, La Bohème and Carmen, as well as from the ballets Giselle, La Bayère and Don Quixote, can be enjoyed as part of the programme.
FAMOUS NAMES TO ADD COLOUR TO THE FESTIVAL WITH OPEN-AIR CONCERTS
Open-air concerts by famous names in Turkish pop music will leave their mark on the Beyoğlu Culture Route Festival. Bengü, Simge, Oğuzhan Koç, Murat Dalkılıç, Merve Özbey, Berkay, Ziynet Sali, Ferhat Göçer, Ebru Yaşar, Mehmet Erdem & Rubato, Emre Altuğ, maNga and Fatma Turgut will treat audiences to enjoyable hours at Galataport Istanbul Clock Tower Square. The Beyoğlu Culture Route Festival Begins
At the Türk Telekom Open-Air Stage set up in the outdoor area of the Atatürk Cultural Centre, nine different musicians and music groups due to give concerts will sing their most beloved songs for the people of Istanbul. Throughout the festival, from Monday to Thursday – four weekdays – visitors will watch the most acclaimed films of recent times in the open air. On Sundays during the festival, at special screenings held with the participation of the artists who appeared in the films, visitors will have the opportunity to meet and chat with the artists.
GOOD NEWS FOR STAR WARS FANS
The most comprehensive exhibition ever held about Star Wars, one of the most-watched series in cinema history, will be a guest at the Istanbul Cinema Museum as part of the Beyoğlu Culture Route. The fan collection, made up of more than 600 pieces brought together over 40 years, will bring the Star Wars universe to the exhibition as of 1 October. The Fans of the Galaxy Exhibition, which has progressed in parallel with the Star Wars productions whose first series was released in 1977, features constructions and unique objects designed by fans over 40 years. The exhibition presents more than 600 pieces with a multifaceted narrative that draws visitors into the Star Wars universe. In addition to original products, hundreds of unique collection pieces, life-size figures, helmets, lightsabers, signed masks, areas offering a virtual reality experience, spaces prepared with set décor, and much more will be on display.
A MARATHON OF OPERA AND MUSICALS
The Mersin State Opera and Ballet Orchestra, under the direction of conductor Rustam Rahmedov and accompanying soprano Funda Uyanık and tenor Hakan Aysev, will add a Mediterranean breeze to the festival with a rich programme of beloved songs. The musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” which takes its audience to pre-revolutionary Tsarist Russia in 1905 and into the world of the inhabitants of the village of Anatevka, caught between tradition and revolution, and the opera “Rigoletto,” composed by Giuseppe Verdi – about the hunchbacked court jester Rigoletto and his daughter Gilda, his only possession in life whom he guards from everyone, falling in love with the philandering Duke of Mantua – will also be staged by the Mersin State Opera and Ballet as part of the festival. The ballet “La Bayère,” one of the greatest ballet works, which forms important links between the Romantic and Classical periods and is a harbinger of the white ballets that followed it, and the opera “Faust,” the masterpiece of the French composer Charles-François Gounod adapted from the work of the same name by the German writer J. W. Goethe, will be staged by the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet. The two-act ballet “Carmen,” which takes on a brand-new meaning by blending classical ballet with flamenco, will be staged by the Samsun State Opera and Ballet.
The folk songs that have become identified with Neşet Ertaş, the last great representative of Turkmen/Abdal culture and musical tradition, will be performed faithfully to their originals in a symphony orchestra arrangement and accompanied by dances prepared with special choreography, under the direction of conductor Eray İnal, by Turkish folk music soloists Nilgün Kızılcı and İsmail Altunsaray. The Kerem Görsev Quartet concert will also be presented to jazz lovers as part of the festival. Görsev will be accompanied by Can Kozlu on drums, Volkan Hürsever on double bass, and Engin Recepoğulları on saxophone.
SPECIAL EVENTS AT THE RAMI LIBRARY
One of the venues of the Beyoğlu Culture Route Festival is the Rami Library… The Manuscript Exhibition of the Sages and Scholars of Anatolia, the Once Upon a Time Exhibition, the “Preserving Tradition” Action Plan Workshop for Protecting the Elements of Ebru (Marbling), Miniature and Calligraphy, and many workshops dedicated to traditional handicrafts will take place at the Rami Library.
EXHIBITIONS CAN BE VISITED THROUGHOUT BEYOĞLU
The exhibitions Plus 700, Calligraphy and Calligraphic Tendencies, and the Osman Hamdi Bey and Academy of Fine Arts Calligraphy Collection at the Istanbul Museum of Painting and Sculpture; the Akbank 41st Contemporary Artists Award Exhibition organised by Akbank Sanat in cooperation with the Association of Painting and Sculpture Museums at Akbank Sanat; and the exhibition titled Existing Together at One Hundred Percent at the AKM Gallery can be visited throughout the festival.
For detailed information and up-to-date programmes: https://beyoglu.kulturyolufestivalleri.com