Constantinople
September 12th to 28th, 2014
Constantinople features Kiya Tabassian, setar; Pierre-Yves Martel, viola da gamba and Didem Başar, kanun.
As musician-inventors and musician-travelers, we endlessly replay our utopias, with Babel as backdrop. The territory to explore is infinite: cultures and memories whose lines we like to shift so that they finally converge. Furthermore, we make migration and the mixing of cultures our territory. Is it perhaps our early exile that led us to return to the source, to follow the tracks of our predecessors, to tirelessly search for creative allies? Whatever it is, this awareness of belonging to several space-times is as basic to us as respiration, as inspiration.”
Drawing inspiration from the ancient trailblazing city illuminating East and West, Constantinople, founded in 1998 in Montreal, was conceived as a forum for encounters and cross-fertilization between a wide range of musical avenues: from medieval manuscripts to contemporary aesthetics, from Mediterranean Europe to the East and New World Baroque.
Constantinople is regularly invited to international festivals, where it is acclaimed by the public, music professionals and critics alike. It has performed on many of the world’s major stages, including Salle Pleyel (Paris), the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (France), the World Sacred Music Festival of Fez (Morocco), the Festival d’Île de France (Paris), the Onassis Centre (Athens), the Festival de México en el Centro Histórico (Mexico) or the Festival de Lanaudière (Quebec). Alongside its tours around the world, Constantinople presents a successful season of creations and revivals in Montreal every year.
Over the course of the decade, the ensemble has created over 35 works and traveled to nearly 120 cities in 20 countries.
*Although the provided video link does not showcase the specific musician/instrument combination that will be touring with Debut Atlantic, it provides a strong example of the flavour these artists offer. We invite you to view their YouTube page by clicking HERE.
Concert Program
Versailles à Topkapı
Echoes of the baroque palaces
Constantinople invites you to join them on a journey from the Court of Versailles to the Topkapı Palace seraglios of Istanbul’s Ottoman sultans.This concert, woven around the music of two great baroque composers, Marin Marais of France (1656-1728) and Demetrius Cantemir of Moldavia (1673-1723), brings together contrasting yet harmonious musical traditions through Constantinople’s remarkable arrangements and signature improvisations.
Music from Baroque era is vivid and subtle as a butterfly. Each movement, each detail is always refined and defined in relation with every other movement. Surprisingly, similarities are abundant between French Baroque and the music developed at the Ottoman Court. Weather one lives at the Court of Louis XIV or at the time of Ahmet III, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, composers from both cultures had the curiosity and the desire to know the music of the other. They also had quite similar antithetical concerns that brought all the beauty of the masterworks from this era. Both were seeking for exquisite details and splendid melodic forms. Blending of both musical worlds, their complementarities and harmonies, results in a unique new journey that ignores time and space. Follow Constantinople on the road between Versailles Court and Topkapı Palace.
PROGRAMME
Mahur pishrow (Demetrius Cantemir, Collection de notation # 289, Kitab-i Ilmu’l-Musiki ala Vechi’l-Hurufat, ca. 1700)
Muzette (Marin Marais, Pièces de viole, Quatrième livre, n°28, 1717)
La Biscayenne (Marin Marais, Pièces de viole, Quatrième Livre, n°55, 1717)
La Sautillante (Marin Marais, Pièces de viole, Quatrième Livre, n°30, 1717)
Zengule pishrow (Demetrius Cantemir, Collection de notation # 302, Kitab-i Ilmu’l-Musiki ala Vechi’l-Hurufat, ca. 1700)
Le Basque (Marin Marais, Pièces de viole, Quatrième Livre, n°39, 1717)
Gigue la Pagode (Marin Marais, Cinquième livre, n°67, 1725)
Muzette (Marin Marais, Pièces à trois violes, Quatrième Livre, 1717)
Buzurk pishrow (Demetrius Cantemir, Collection de notation # 332, Kitab-i Ilmu’l-Musiki ala Vechi’l-Hurufat, ca. 1700)
La Polonaise (Marin Marais, Pièces de viole, Second Livre, n°40, 1701)
Bestinigar pishrow (Demetrius Cantemir, Collection de notation # 281, Kitab-i Ilmu’l-Musiki ala Vechi’l-Hurufat, ca. 1700)
Buselik Ashirani pishrow (Demetrius Cantemir, Collection de notation # 271, Kitab-i Ilmu’l-Musiki ala Vechi’l-Hurufat, ca. 1700)
Couplets de folie (Marin Marais, Pièces de viole, Second Livre, n°20, 1701)