Presentations & Teaching
The Emergence of Music as a "Profession" in Turkey
Lecture for the British Institute at Ankara, 2022
In the early 20th century, the choir’s introduction to Turkish classical music-making was seen to support broader social reforms aimed at modernizing self-Westernization. Turkish classical music choirs have since created new models of musical patronage, transmission, and sociality, as well as a new class of “professional” musician with economic power and cultural influence. Now, musicians instrumentalize the concepts “profesyonel” (“professional”) and “amatör” (“amateur”) as status markers to enforce a hierarchy that arbitrates which musicians have enough status to transmit a form of national culture. This lecture seeks to demonstrate longstanding modes of musical engagement that defy categorization within an amateur-professional dichotomy as well as how music’s professionalization serves a role within a broader nation-building project.
Alnadi Podcast: Guest Interview
Episode 104: "Seeking the Meaning of One's Own," 2023
I was the invited guest on Alnadi Podcast, where host Fadil Al Turki and I discussed my journey as a violinist trained in Western and Turkish classical music traditions. We talked about learning music in different cultures and the joys and challenges of "switching religions," musically speaking. The episode is available on YouTube, SoundCloud, and other podcast streaming apps.
Conference Presentations
2023
Co-organized panel “Patronage and Passage: Ethnomusicological Perspectives on Mobility In Patronage Relationships,” including own presentation “Singing and Bringing the Domestic Abroad: Mobility and Agency of State and Amateur Musicians in Turkish Classical Music Choirs,” Society of Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting, Ottawa, Canada
“Professional Musician, Amateur Soul: Exploring Hierarchies of Respectability, Creativity, and the State in Turkish Classical Music Choirs,” presentation for “The Expertise of the Musical Amateur” conference, University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz, Austria
“A Discipline for the Nation: Turkish Classical Music Choirs in History and Practice,” presentation for the 29th International Congress of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO) and the Fourth European Convention on Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish Studies (Turkologentag), University of Vienna, Austria
“A Discipline for the Nation: Turkish Classical Music Choirs in History and Practice,” invited presentation at 13th International Doctoral Workshop in Ethnomusicology, Center for World Music at the University of Hildesheim and Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, Germany
2022
“Cultural Diplomacy Despite the State: Mobility and Agency of State and Amateur Musicians in Turkish Classical Music Choirs,” presented at the Orient-Institut Istanbul
“Turkish Classical Music Choirs and the Making of a Musical ‘Profession,’” presented at the British Forum for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting, Milton Keynes, UK, the British Institute at Ankara, Koç University ANAMED, and the 21st Quinquennial IMS Congress, Athens, Greece
2021
“The Zildjian Cymbal: Lineages of Blood and Alloy and the Reckoning of Modern Time,” presented at the 10th International Scientific Meeting for Sound, Music, and Musical Instrument Studies, ANIMUSIC, Portugal (virtual), and the Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting (virtual)
“A Choir of One: Virtually Transmitting Turkish Classical Music in the COVID-19 Era,” presented at Transformations of Musical Creativity in the 21st Century, Center for Advanced Studies in Music, Istanbul Technical University
“Producing and Transgressing the Family: State, Surveillance, Kinship and China’s Uyghurs,” invited presentation at Workshop on Contemporary Scholarship of China’s Turkic Frontier Zone, University of Washington
2019
“Communities of Respect: An Ethnography of Turkish Art Music Choirs in London,” presented at Global Musics and Musical Communities, UCLA, California and at the Northeast England Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Colby College, Maine
2017
“Diasporic Identities, Symbolic Production, and the Avedis Zildjian Company,” presented at Entangled Encounters: Antiquity and Modernity in Armenian Studies, Harvard University
2015
“Orientalism, Regionalism, Cosmopolitanism: Musical Manifestations of Cultural Hybridity,” presented at Creating Music across Cultures in the 21st Century, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
Teaching Experience and Invited Talks
Guest Lecturer, String Instruments in Global Contexts course led by Dr. Judith Haug, University of Münster, Germany
Invited Speaker, “Cultural Diplomacy Despite the State: Mobility and Agency of State and Amateur Musicians in Turkish Classical Music Choirs,” Ethnomusicology Seminar, University of Cambridge
Guest Lecturer, presented on fieldwork experiences in Ethnomusicology course led by Professor Kay K. Shelemay, Harvard University [online]
Guest Lecturer, Music Sociology course led by Professor Ozan Eren, MEF University, Istanbul, Turkey
Guest Lecturer, Music and Migration course led by Professors Kay K. Shelemay and Kate van Orden, Harvard University, [online]
Teaching Fellow, Critical Listening course led by Professor Kay K. Shelemay, Harvard University [online]
Guest Lecturer, Music Sociology course led by Professor Ozan Eren, MEF University, Istanbul, Turkey
Guest Lecturer, Ethnomusicology and Instrumentality courses led by Professor Frederick Stubbs, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Guest Lecturer, “Makam and Beyond,” invited by Professor Ted Levin, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
University Application Mentor, Senior Tutor, and Extracurricular and Leadership Consultant, Crimson Education (Global)
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