Renan Koen Plays Ali Darmar

“RENAN KOEN – PIANO WORKS BY ALİ DAMAR”, ON WHICH PIANIST, COMPOSER, SOPRANO AND MUSIC THERAPIST RENAN KOEN INTERPRETS THE PIANO WORKS OF HER TEACHER ALİ DAMAR, HAS BEEN RELEASED BY LİLA MÜZİK

THERE ARE TWO SUPRISES ON THIS ALBUM, WHICH HAS BEEN PREPARED BY RENAN KOEN IN HOMAGE TO HER TEACHER ALİ DAMAR: THE FIRST OF THESE IS THE PERFORMANCE OF THE COMPOSER’S OUT OF SILENCE BY DOYENNE MUSICIANS ALA ERDURAN AND AYŞEGÜL SARICA. THE OTHER IS THE RECORDING BY RENAN KOEN WITH YOUNG PIANIST EMİR İLGEN, WHO HAS RECEIVED MANY AWARDS AND WHOSE NAME WILL BE HEARD FREQUENTLY IN COMING YEARS.

Pianist, composer, soprano and music therapist Renan Koen, who has spent long years working and giving concerts both at home and abroad, as well as realizing new projects and releasing CDs, offers music lovers the piano works of Ali Damar, her teacher and master of 35 years, entitled “Renan Koen – piano works by Ali Damar”.

With his musical education in Paris and with his sensitive but deep musical understanding that is no longer frequently encountered, Ali Damar forms a bridge between the third and fourth generations of contemporary Turkish composers. His works emphasize clear, easy-to- remember melodies within a new understanding of romanticism.

In Renan Koen’s introduction to this album she says: “It is my heartfelt wish that the timeless works of my master, Ali Damar, should reach a wider audience. I believe it will be a great gift to all music lovers and especially the younger generation to experience the delicacy of his works not only musically but in the wider sense of life itself”.

There are also surprises on this album, which is the result of meticulous work by Koen. One of these is the 2008 recording of the premiere of Damar’s work Out of Silence. In this we witness the coming together of two musical doyennes, Ayla Erduran and Ayşegül Sarıca, with their refined technique and style in their own rich worlds. The other surprise is a recording by Renan Koen together with Emir İlgen, a young pianist still continuing his education, of whom we will hear much in the future.

We thank Erol Hakanoğlu and İzi Morhayim for their contributions to the realization of the CD, which includes a lengthy interview by Renan Koen with her teacher Ali Damar. The recordings are by Pieter Snapper, the photographs by Sebla Selin Ok and Cem Kurtuluş and the design is by Gözde Oral.