Turkish clarinetist goes ‘dancing’ with Chamber Orchestra
Chamber Orchestra of the Springs, season finale, conducted by Thomas Wilson with clarinetist Emirhan Tuga, 7 p.m. Saturday (Broadmoor Community Church, 315 Lake Ave.) and 2:30 p.m. Sunday (First Christian Church, 16 E. Platte Ave.); $5-$20; 633-3649; chamberorchestraofthesprings.org.
Clarinetist Emirhan Tuga (Eh-MEER-hahn TOO-ah) comes to Colorado Springs for two concerts with the Chamber Orchestra of the Springs from his home in Amsterdam.
He got to Europe after leaving his native Turkey. His musical journeys are even more exotic.
“I describe myself as a musician, but I don’t want to categorize myself,” he explained. “When I was a child I was singing Turkish folk music. I grew up with Western classical music education at elementary school. After my college I studied European classical music at the conservatory in Turkey and in The Netherlands. As a choir singer I sang polyphonic choir music (Monteverdi, Gershwin and composers from Balkan lands) at European festivals and competitions. I have been greatly influenced by clarinet folk-music culture such as Klezmer, Turkish and music forms from the Balkan countries. Actually I became interested and started to play and improvise this style after my study at the conservatory. I was very curious about other clarinet music culture like jazz, gypsy jazz, Balkan and Klezmer. My musical horizon got wider after I met, played and got some lessons from nonclassical music players.
He’ll be more of a classical player with the chamber orchestra this weekend.
“Both Lutoslawski’s “Dance Preludes” and Piazzolla’s “Contemplacion y Danza” are fantastic pieces,” said Tuga. “Both composers have gotten inspired by folk and dance elements, which I very much love to play both on the same program.
“It is a unique and accessible program for the audience. Both works contain small movements and different characters. They can hear how world composers got inspired by this musical idea (dance) and wrote these great works from Eastern Europe (Lutoslawski) and Latin America (Piazzolla).”
David Sckolnik, david.sckolnik@gazette.com
Nederland, Amsterdam, 1 April 2009 Emirhan Tuga, klarinettist foto: Merlijn Doomernik