Music Across Borders Session 5: The Caucasus

Join the fifth session of Music Across Borders, a Listening Club series exploring the musical connections between Türkiye and its cultural neighbours. Moderated by musicologist and pianist Prof. Dr Mine Doğantan-Dack, this session invites participants on a listening journey across the Caucasus, tracing the forests, fog-covered mountains, and high “yayla” plateaus of north-eastern Turkey and the Caucasus.

Session V — The Caucasus explores a region of magical landscapes and extraordinarily rich musical traditions, and home to more than fifty distinct ethnic groups and one of the most linguistically dense places on earth. From the shadow of Kars Castle, to the Black Sea coast and the mountain villages of the Caucasus, we will move through Turkish, Azerbaijani, Georgian and Armenian traditions, immersing ourselves in the Âşıklık heritage, the beautiful art of mugham, and the unique polyphonic singing of Georgia.

Along the way you will enjoy the music of Kemani Tatyos Efendi, “Baba” Hamparsum, Shovket Elekberova, Flora Kerimova, Hamlet Gonashvili, Nermine Memmedova, İzzet Altınmeşe, Barış Manço, Rashid Behbudov, Alim Qasimov, Zeyneb Khanlarova, Djivan Gasparyan, Ensemble Rustavi, Arif Sağ, Selda Bağcan, and more. To the accompaniment of the fierce energy of Lezginka and Black Sea folk dances, this session will bring to life the legends of Köroğlu and Şeyh Şamil, and the widely shared symbolic motifs of the region including the eagle, the deer, and the crane – echoes of kinship beneath a shared sky.

Session V — The Caucasus
Date: Friday, 29th May
Time: 6:00 pm
Venue: Yunus Emre Enstitüsü, 10 Maple Street, W1T 5HA

Limited spaces. 

Explore the curated listening list and playlist for this session here:

No musical training required – open to all music lovers and curious listeners.

This session is part of a six-session Listening Club series exploring musical cultures across the Balkans, the Levant, the Aegean, Persia, the Turkic world, and the Ottoman musical sphere. For more info please click here!

For more information on the event, please email us at londra@yee.org.tr

IMPORTANT NOTES

This in-person event is open to participants aged 16 and above.

Please note that this event is first come first served and may be overbooked. To avoid disappointment, please arrive early and secure your seat. If you have registered but are unable to attend, please cancel your ticket to allow others to join. Thank you for your cooperation.

Please be advised that filming and/or photography will be taking place at the event for the purposes of archiving, marketing, and all other publications. By entering this event, you consent to the Yunus Emre Institute taking photographs and videos and using them.