Abstract:

Today, Turkish Art Music (the literal translation of Türk Sanat Müziği) is liked by so many people and is absolutely a continuation of a music that established its owncharacter in the Ottoman period. An urban maqam music, it evolved in imperialfacilities. We cannot use the word “maqam/makam” for Turkish music that is preOttoman, but we can say that it was also a modal music. The Turkish maqam musicfrom the Ottoman period has a multicultural character. It was normal for the time sincethe Ottoman period was characterized by different nations, religions, beliefs, and waysof thinking. The orthodox Greeks, Armenians and Jews who lived inthe OttomanEmpire were also using this same musical language—“maqam/makam.”In this paper we have used oral history project interviews that were conductedduring 2008-2010 with musicians who performed maqam music between 1950-1990.Interviews conducted with 40 musicians revealed their frustration that people today arenot interested in maqam music nor concerned with continuing the tradition, do notcontribute to the respectability of the musical language, during the musical synthesis.Munir Nurettin Selçuk is the last hero of this urban maqam music tradition. Oursolution is to make this music live by respecting its authenticity as a part of the EastWest music synthesis

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