Bridges

“each death is a re-birth…a bridge that stretches to eternity…from birth to death…and death to birth…between two lives…two whiffs of air…the picture of pain never changes…the scream of pain in the eyes is always the same…but it is deaf to society, religion, language or race…it is the bridges that bring people together, make their hearts beat as one, share the same vision… the soul gives out and only then comes submission to God… and… everything ceases to be…only to be again… a light touches the skin where the night and the new day embrace…it is the bridges that unite the light and the new hopes on the horizon and make them one…”

Bridges, is a suite for piano, voice and bendir. In this suite, the sounds of these instruments have later been developed both electronically and acoustically.

In this piece, I have focused on the concepts of death, submission, metamorphosis and hope.

The Sephardic lullaby “Nani”, which I adapted for the piano with a Western edge, and the Anatolian lullaby “Dandini” symbolize death, desperation and the eternal slumber. The chaotic employment of the electronic elements at the beginning symbolizes pain and the refusal to give up to death. “Tsidvk adin”, which is a Jewish burial hymn, symbolizes wasting away in the face of pain, whereas Nağ’t, the Mevlevi hymn, stands for total submission. In this piece bendir was used to signify the metamorphosis. The “Dandini” you hear from a little girl signifies the purity of time. The Muslim Morning Prayer (sabah ezanı) is a celebration of the new day and the new hopes that come with it. I chose the hymns and the ezan- especially the Saba maquam- to reflect the simultaneous free-from-time-and-space existence of that hazy territory between life and death and its very presence in time and space.

I would like to express my love and my deepest gratitude to Doğan Dikmen, Menahem Eskenazi and Brenda Kandiyoti for their precious contributions to this project with their voices…