ANKARA – Turkish Daily News

Today is Tuesday, March 1 2005 12:45 pm GMT+2 updated at 12:00 P.M.

Famous Rebetika musician Ketencoðlu to perform in Ankara

Tuesday, March 1, 2005

ANKARA – Turkish Daily News

Internationally renowned Rebetika musician Muammer Ketencoðlu will be
performing at Laterna, a Greek cafe-restaurant in Ankara, on March 2 and 3.

His accordion and vocal repertoire during the two concerts will include old and
new tunes from across the Aegean Sea.

Ketencoðlu received his initial musical training in a school for the blind.
During his university education at the Bosporus Department of Psychology, he was
attracted to the folk music of different countries. Although he first focused on
contemporary Greek music (Laika) and Rebetika, his affinity for other peoples’
folk music ultimately led him to find alternative courses in Balkan music.

His first album, Latremmena Akroyalia (Passionate Coasts), featuring old and
new Greek songs, was released in 1993. He prepared two collections of Rebetika
songs, Rebetiko I and II, which were produced in 1994 and 1995 respectively.
Another anthology compiled by Ketencoðlu and produced in 1995 was titled
Pioneers of Klezmer Music. The album brought together examples of Klezmer music
based mainly on traditional Eastern European Jewish music.

In the same year he prepared an anthology, Halklardan Ezgiler (Popular Tunes),
comprising four albums, each containing folk songs that best represent the
traditional music of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Central Asian Turkic
Republics.

From 1993 to 1997 he organized yearly concerts known as the Seven Colors of
Earth, each with a new repertoire of folk songs performed by a number of
musicians.

Taking part in various groups and individual musicians’ works, Muammer
Ketencoðlu also gave many solo concerts both in Turkey and abroad. Together with
the native Anatolian Greek singer Ývi Dermancý, he shared the stage with the
great Greek musician Mikis Theodorakis in 1996, first in Livadia and then in
Athens. He has performed twice, in 1997 and 2000, in the “Peace Concert”
organized in southern Cyprus.

Kompania Ketencoðlu, his group performing Rebetiko has given concerts in
Istanbul, Athens, Saloniki, Tricala, Xanthi, Lesbos and Crete. Ketencoðlu also
took part in various festivals in Germany, several times in Berlin, Bilefeld,
Frankfurt and in France, both Paris and Metz. For further information on
Ketencoðlu’s Ankara concerts, contact Laterna Café-Bar, Tunus Cad No. 50
Kavaklidere.

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