Burak Ozdemir is a two time Ahmet Ertegun Memorial Scholarship recipient. Established by The American Turkish Society in memory of Ahmet Ertegun, the late Chairman of The Society, the scholarship offers tuition support to deserving students of Turkish descent attending The Juilliard School in New York City.

Ticket Price: GA Tickets $25.00;
All Students & Baruch Faculty $15.00 (Available only @ the Box Office w/ ID)

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

Tickets by Phone: 212-352-3101
866-811-4111

Musica Sequenza Players
Elizabeth Derham, Violin
Liv Heym, Violin
Kim Mai Nguyen, Viola
Ceren Turkmenler, Cello
Irene Wong, Harpsichord
Burak Ozdemir, Bassoon

Musica Sequenza, an early music ensemble founded by Burak Ozdemir, is comprised of young Juilliard musicians who found they all shared a common passion for music from the early ages. The ensemble performs music ranging from renaissance to late Rococo, on both modern and period instruments. Mr. Ozdemir serves as Musica Sequenza's artistic director/conductor, as well as bassoonist of the ensemble. The ensemble made its debut on January 2009 at Peter J Sharp Theater at The Juilliard School's Chamber Music Fest in a performance of C.P.E. Bach's Concerto, Wq.166 in an arrangement transcribed by Mr. Ozdemir.

The 2009 - 10 concert season also included performances at the American Irish Society, The New York Society for Ethical Culture, a masterclass performance featuring gamba virtuose Jordi Savall at Juilliard's Paul Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Maiden Lane.

The American Turkish Society and Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University (ISAW) present a lecture with

Christopher Roosevelt
Assistant Professor of Archaeology
Boston University

on the topic:

“Probing and Preserving the Past in Western Turkey: The Central Lydia Archaeological Survey”

The Central Lydia Archaeological Survey has been investigating all periods of the human past in central western Anatolia since 2005. The project focuses on a roughly 350 sq. km. area surrounding Marmara Gölü (the ancient Gygaean Lake), around 10 km north of Sardis, the capital of Lydia in the Iron Age. In addition to the funerary monuments of Bin Tepe, the area of a "thousand mounds" commonly identified as the royal cemetery of the Lydians, the project has shed light on periods ranging from Paleolithic to recent times. This presentation highlights recent discoveries including a network of large, well-preserved citadels that may have composed the core of the Seha River Land, a Bronze Age kingdom important to the Hittites in their territorial control of western Anatolia, as well as rifle trenches and other emplacements associated with the outbreak of the Turkish War of Independence. Along with such ongoing investigations, the presentation emphasizes preservation initiatives that encourage local and regional efforts to protect heritage landscapes through a variety of monitoring and outreach programs, including annual inventories of looting and destruction, as well as community meetings and educational programs for children.

Christopher Roosevelt is an Assistant Professor of Archaeology at Boston University. A member of the Archaeological Institute of America, the American Research Institute in Turkey, the British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara, and the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, he is the recipient of a National Science Foundation grant for a project titled “Environmental and Cultural Dynamics in Central Lydia, Western Turkey.” He has contributed to the American Journal of Archaeology, the Journal of Field Archaeology, and other journals and edited volumes.

The event is free and online registration is not available for this event. Please email info@americanturkishsociety.org for questions or inquiries.

The American Turkish Society and Moon and Stars Project are pleased to present

Fatima Spar and the Freedom Fries

Early Show: 8:00pm
Late Show: 10:00 pm

Ticket Price: $25, $20 (senior citizens and students with valid ID)

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE.

A Vienna-based group formed in 2004, Fatima Spar and the Freedom Fries is an Austrian ethno-folk brass band with a Turkish singer that integrates jazz and many musical styles from the Balkans. Their music encompasses an artistic blend of multiple instruments like trumpet, saxophone, accordion and bass. The band derives its name from the euphemism for French Fries used in the U.S. after the French government’s refusal to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Though against the invasion, the band liked the name, and it stuck.

The band consists of Fatima Spar (Nihal Senturk- vocals), Philipp Moosbrugger (bass), Erwin Schober (drums), Milos Todorovski (accordion), Phil Yaeger (trombone), Florian Wagner(guitar), and Alexander Wladigeroff (trumpet). The group which averages around 100 concerts every year has performed in many renowned concert halls throughout Europe including Notting Hill Arts Club in London, Wiener Konzerthaus in Vienna and Concertgebouw in Amsterdam as well as leading music clubs in Belgrade and Istanbul.

The lyrics, which find emotion in Fatima Spar’s contemporary jazz voice, are mostly in English and Turkish. When asked about how she would like to be remembered, Fatima Spar told Turkish Journal, “Precious but fleeting”, which it may be said, is also a good depiction of her band’s brilliant amalgam of sounds. Falling somewhere between 1960’s and today’s music, the band’s tunes resemble avant garde artists such as Pink Martini and Paris Combo and yet retain their own individuality.

Some of their most popular songs including 'Egyptian Ella' (a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald), 'Bosa Noga', 'Kızılcıklar Oldu Mu', and 'Kibirli Ceviz' are covered in their second album Zirzop and their latest album Trust was recorded in Frankfurt’s renowned Hazelwood Studio. The story behind the album’s title song, 'Trust', is poignant and politically charged. “I read a racist propaganda letter in a bus line, which said ‘Kill all Muslims’ with an image showing a man hanging off a scaffold,” says Fatima Spar. The group would then go back to the studio to produce the album. Trust contains a skillful mix of romantic and political songs such as 'My Little Someone', which tells the story of a great love, and 'Biting Creepers', which continues with the same theme, depicting love and kisses as best antidotes to hypocrisy.

Fatima Spar has been nominated for the Amadeus Austrian Music Award and the BBC World Music Award, among others, and her band was also the first Austrian band that played in the official program of Womex, the world music expo.