TADAEX in Tehran

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Korhan Erel

I will play a concert and talk on computer instrument design at the Tehran Annual Digital Art Exhibition on July 8-9, 2012. The venue is Mohsen Gallery.

“TADAEX has been established as an annual program with a mixture of fascination, curiosity and hope to the future of contemporary art and a commitment to share, introduce and promote digital and inter-disciplinary art with the help of famous international platforms such as ARS Electronica, Openframeworks.cc, Association of Neuroaesthetics and VisualBerlin.de.

TADAEX focuses on art, science, technology and society to present the impact of art as a research and development tool for humanity in a variety of different disciplines.

We believe that TADAEX can help to create a serious motivation for the young generation of artists in Iran to understand the influence of digital art movement.”

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New Album: Superimposed Circumstances

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Korhan Erel

Composer and pianist Tolga Tüzün and computer musician Korhan Erel, both operating in between the lines and both tackling sounds, textures, patterns that live, that breathe, started out a joint journey in 2009. This journey culminated in a recording at the concert hall of Bilgi University in Istanbul as well as a multiple-speaker concert at the Borusan Music House in January 2012. This album, released on Tolga’s Another World label in  electronic format, includes six tracks from the 2009 recording session. All pieces are freely improvised by Tolga Tüzün on piano and Korhan Erel on computer and controllers.

Superimposed circumstances is available on:

iTunes
Amazon
CD Baby
emusic

and other online music stores.

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Eyal Hareuveni review of Three States of Freedom

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Korhan Erel

Three States of Freedom – Tom Soloveitzik, Korhan Erel, Kevin Davis

Jerusalem-based journalist / music critic Eyal Hareuveni has recently published a review of the album Three States of Freedom on allaboutjazz.com. Hareuveni writes for allaboutjazz, squidoo and other websites and was among the audience at the trio’s performance at Barbour Gallery in Jerusalem in June 2010. Besides being a keen listener, he dreams of living near some of the finest jazz clubs of Oslo, or the Shinjuku Pit-Inn club in Tokyo or just as well near Stockholm’s Glenn Miller Café. He is a peace activist, a cyclist and a father of three female cats.

These three experimental musicians— Israeli saxophonist Tom Soloveitzik, Turkish electronics player Korhan Erel (founding member of the Turkey’s pioneering free improvisation group, Islak Köpek), and American expat cellist Kevin Davis met in Istanbul in 2009. This album was recorded a year later, in June 2010, following a short Israeli tour, conducted during troubled political times, both between Israel and Turkey and within Israel itself.

The seven free improvisations focus on sounds at their most abstract and vulnerable. Soloveitzik plays the saxophone but for him it is simply a metallic instrument into which one can breathe. Respectfully, Erel electronic kit produces light, fragile sounds that rarely have an obvious shape, while Davis sticks to the John Cage philosophy that all sounds are beautiful, and researches the sonic continuum of his cello with extended techniques.

Oblivious to the political storm outside the recording studio, the three musicians manage to articulate their own patient, respectful, compassionate and always thoughtful and cerebral multilayered sound worlds, letting each interplay evolve organically. The weightless sounds float and change their elastic form, kinetic volition and energy levels through delicate microtonal interactions. On “Shmoneh,” “Eser” and “Arbah,” silence and near-silence are of equal importance, and possess the same intensity as more audible percussive sounds.

A very interesting sonic exploration.

Link to the original review on allaboutjazz.com

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Yola Çıktığım Gün Sakin Serin Bir Sabahtı… / It Was a Calm and Chilly Morning The Day I Left…

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Korhan Erel

I have recently completed all original music and sound design work for Yesim Özsoy Gülan’s latest play “It Was a Calm and Chilly Morning The Day I Left…”. The play premiered in the IKSV Istanbul International Theater Festival on May 11. The remaining dates in May are below. The play is in Turkish but there is an English translation available at the venue for anyone who is not fluent in Turkish to follow the play.

In their new play “It was a Calm and Chilly Morning the Day I left” VEDST Theater Group is yet again creating a special stage design which shapes their play. The audience who’s surrounded by a fantastic amusement park atmosphere is confronted with a magical reality created by the play in which six characters, in an “imaginary” country where there is an increasing violation of freedom, search for a solution to their situation. The play lays out a political atmosphere in which the audience is expected to correlate with his/her own existence. While the carnivalesque metaphor of an amusement park is subverted, the references are also de-contextualized. As the play unfolds issues related to freedom violations, Turkish/Armenian conflicts, massacres related to differences in religious sects, Kurdish identity and sexual exploitation and discrimination of underage girls are under focus. The play creates a space for the audience to break the codes and decipher the meanings…

Written&Directed by: Yeşim Özsoy Gülan
Stage Design: Barış Dinçel
Light Design: Kemal Yiğitcan
Sound and Music Design: Korhan Erel
Director’s Assistants: Can Özden, Ezgi Düzenli, Ferdi Çetin
Administrative Director: Nilüfer Dönmez
Photography Concept: Genco Gülan
Photography: Hande Göksan

Performers:
DOA (Man With Issues) – Ali Rıza Kubilay
HKA (Man Who Has Lost Everything) – Hakan Atalay
GK (Such a Young Girl) – Begüm Akkaya
GÇ (Such a Young Boy) Musab Ekici
ASA (Man Who Hides His Name) – Oğuzhan Ayaz
SAA (Man Who Cries All the Time) – Emin Maltepe
Lunapark’s Watchman – Rıfat Doğu

80 minutes, no entr’acte

Performances in May 2012:
Friday May 11th (8.30PM) – IKSV Festival
Saturday May 12th (3.30PM and 8.30PM) – IKSV Festival
Friday May 18th (9.00PM)
Saturday May 19th (3.30PM and 9.00PM)
Friday May 25th (9.00PM)
Saturday May 26th (3.30PM and 9.00PM)

Venue: MATZOH FACTORY (Şair Ziya Paşa Yokuşu, No:13, Galata Kuledibi – Beyoğlu)
Tickets: 30TL, 15TL (students)
Info and reservation: +905302602524
Website

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Islak Köpek at Gitar Cafe in May

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Korhan Erel

Islak KöpekTurkey’s pioneering free improvisation ensemble Islak Köpek plays at Gitar Cafe in Istanbul after a brief hiatus. The concert is on May 5, Saturday and will start at 9 pm.

Özgür Doğaçlama topluluğu Islak Köpek, verdiği kısa aradan Gitar Cafe konseriyle geri dönüyor. 5 Mayıs akşamki  konser saat 21:00’de.

Şevket Akıncı: Akustik Gitar / Acoustic Guitar
Korhan Erel: Bilgisayar, Kumanda Arabirimleri / Computer, Controllers
Gülşah Erol: Viyolonsel / Cello
Giray Gürkal: Elektrik Gitar, Efektler / Electric Guitar, Effects
Robert Reigle: Tenor Saksofon / Tenor Saxophone
Volkan Terzioğlu: Tenor Saksofon / Tenor Saxophone

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New album Three States of Freedom released

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Korhan Erel

The Israeli tour with saxophonist Tom Soloveitzik and cellist Kevin Davis in June 2010 is one of the most important defining artistic and emotional moments in my life and career as an improviser. After five concerts in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, Tom, Kevin and I had a recording session in the historic town of Jaffa. This recording turned into an album called Three States of Freedom – three musicians from three states: Israel, the US and Turkey. Three States of Freedom is now available on Creative Sources Recordings, a prolific Portuguese label run by Ernesto Rodrigues.

The liner notes, written by Tom Soloveitzik,  tells the story of the tour and the album much better than I ever could.

The story of our meeting is not so different from many other meetings between musicians in the rather small world of improvised music. In October 2009 I travelled from Israel to Istanbul. Curious to connect with like-minded improvisers, I contacted Korhan, a founding member of Turkey’s pioneering free improvisation group, Islak Köpek. Korhan arranged for us to meet with Kevin, the group’s American-born cellist.

We played in a little studio in Galata, an ancient neighbourhood that has been home to many shifting communities over nearly two thousand years
of Istanbul’s cosmopolitan history. As a result of this we decided to form a project that eventually resulted in a tour of Israel and a recording session.

As it happened, our tour began in June 2010, just a few days after the May 31 raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in which nine Turkish citizens were killed by the Israeli military. The incident marked a new low point in diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel. We were once again reminded of the bluntness of politics and the fragility of the human condition. Korhan and Kevin’s arrival in Israel took on another layer of significance.

Our tour coincided with a heat wave, too. We saw cars stopped by the side of the road, unable to cope with the heat. In Jerusalem, a hundred thousand ultra-Orthodox Jews took to the streets to protest a Supreme Court decision that ruled against ethnic discrimination in one of their schools. Weather, politics, religion; it seemed that nothing would ever cool down. We pushed on through Tel Aviv and Haifa, and finished a week later in Jaffa, where we recorded this album.
A line was drawn from our first meeting in Istanbul to our last days in Jaffa. While we recorded, this line hovered in the air, connecting our individual histories with a multitude of histories of confrontation, resistance, and co-existence. The music we made together wasn’t political per se, but it opened a path for an international dialogue different from the one that was going on around us. Music travels to places diplomacy cannot. In ways audible and inaudible, these histories add another dimension to our sounds.

The album is available on the Creative Sources website as well as Metamkine.

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Islak Köpek with Wilbert de Joode and Tanya Kalmanovitch

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Korhan Erel

Turkish free improvisation ensemble Islak Köpek will be playing a concert at Gitar Cafe in Istanbul with double-bass player Wilbert de Joode (Amsterdam) and violist/violinist Tanya Kalmanovitch (New York). This concert is a part of the collaboration with the Dutch collective Stichting dOeK. Previous collaborations featured Michael Moore, Wolter Wierbos and Eric Boeren.

Wilbert de Joode – double bass
Tanya Kalmanovitch – viola, violin
Şevket Akıncı – acoustic guitar
Korhan Erel – computer, controllers
Gülşah Erol – cello
Giray Gürkal – electric guitar, effects
Robert Reigle – tenor saxophone
Volkan Terzioglu  – tenor saxophone

Gitar Cafe
December 23, Friday 21:00
Istanbul

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Concerts in Germany, France, Belgium, Holland (23.11 – 13.12)

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Korhan Erel

Germany – Gunnar Lettow & Korhan Erel

Hamburg
23.11.2011, 22:00
Frequenzgänge, Hamburg
Hörbar, Brigittenstr. 5

Gunnar Lettow – prepared electric bass, electronics, objects
Korhan Erel – computer and controllers

Second performance of the evening:
visual bassic :
Kathrin Bethge – projektion, John Eckhardt – ebass & processing

Hannover
24.11.2011, 21:30
Oberdeck, Königsworther Str. 20, Hannover

Gunnar Lettow – prepared electric bass, electronics, objects
Korhan Erel – computer and controllers
Guest: Andreas Brüning – electric bass

Berlin
25.11.2011, 22:00
Ausland, Lychener Str. 60

Chris Heenan – saxophone, contrabass clarinet
Gunnar Lettow – prepared electric bass, electronics, objects
Korhan Erel – computer and controllers

also playing:
diatribes + Magda Mayas
Andrea Parkins

Berlin
27.11.2011,18:00
Miss Hecker

3 duos

Axel Haller – electric bass
Gunnar Lettow – prepared electric bass, electronics, objects
Korhan Erel – computer and controllers

Strasbourg, France

Nazim’a Doğru / Vers Nazim – 7th Strasbourg-Mediterranee Festival
29.11.2011, 20:30
Théâtre Jeune Public Petite Scène
1, rue du Pont St Martin à Strasbourg

A performance based on and inspired by the great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet that brings together spoken word, improvisation, songs and visuals.

Sumru Agıryürüyen – vocals
Sevket Akıncı – electric guitar
Oguz Büyükberber – Bb and bass clarinets
Anil Eraslan – cello
Cenk Erdoğan – fretless guitar
Korhan Erel – computer
Ozan Akıncı – live visuals

Free Improvisation Concert
30.11.2011, Strasbourg, France
artichaut, 56 Grand’Rue, Strasbourg

With most of the Nazim’a Dogru musicians.

Brussels, Belgium

Solo
3.12.2011, 20:30
Q-O2, Brussels

Korhan Erel – computer, controllers

A solo set following the performance by Patrick Farmer, Dominic Lash, Helena Gough.

The Netherlands
Duo Lotz/Erel – Mark Alban Lotz and Korhan Erel

Haarlem
08.12.2011, 20:30
Mondiaal Centrum Haarlem, Haarlem

Wolter Wierbos, trombone
Wilbert de Joode, double bass
Mark Alban Lotz, flutes
Korhan Erel, computer and controllers

Amsterdam
10.12.2011, 21:00
Delicatessen, Amsterdam

Mark Alban Lotz, flutes
Korhan Erel, computer and controllers
and guests

Also playing:
Han Buhrs, voice

Amsterdam
13.12.2011, 20:30
Badcuyp, Eerste Sweelinckstraat 10 Amsterdam

Mark and Korhan will be joined by Robert van Heumen in Karnatic Lab, the monthly concert series organized by Ned McGowan.

Robert van Heumen, computer and controllers
Mark Alban Lotz, flutes
Korhan Erel, computer and controllers

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Islak Köpek album with Mark Alban Lotz released on Evil Rabbit Records

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Korhan Erel

Islak Köpek’s third album Istanbul improv sessions may 4th, a collaboration with flutist Mark Alban Lotz, has been released on Evil Rabbit Records in September 2011.

The album includes group recordings as well as many duos and trios between Islak Köpek musicians and Mark Alban Lotz. The liner notes are written by prominent jazz critic Kevin Whitehead.

The album should be available on online stores and major music stores soon.

Here are some intial reviews:

Jazz Alchemist
Jazzflits.nl (will open a PDF documents in Dutch)

And a short review by Francois Couture on his Monsieur Délire blog:

An interesting free improvisation meeting between globe-trotting flutist Mark Alban Lotz and Turkish improv group Islak Köpek (a quintet comprising two saxes, cello, guitar & laptop). Fifteen short tracks developing occasionally conventional ideas, though always in clever ways. This music is slithering and shaking with life.

Rencontre intérssante d’improvisation libre entre le flûtiste globe-trotter Mark Alban Lotz et le groupe d’improvisation turc Islak Köpek (un quintette comptant deux saxos, violoncelle, guitare et électroniques). Quinze pièces courtes développant des idées parfois convenues mais intelligemment exécutées. Ça grouille, ça bouille, ça vit.

Mark Alban Lotz & Islak Köpek - Istanbul improv sessions may 4th

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Profile Page on New Music Istanbul

Posted on June 27, 2011 by Korhan Erel

Korhan Erel is now included among the composers on the ”Listening to Istanbul” website.

http://www.newmusicistanbul.com/composers/korhan-erel

The “Listening to Istanbul” website lets you explore the vivid scene of contemporary music in Istanbul. On this website you will find biographies, CDs and other information on composers who are active in the city on the Bosphorus.
With the integrated events calendar you can easily see if a composer has an upcoming performance in your area, and experience the captivating and exciting music of these composers live in the concert hall.

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