Başak – from Turkey to Germany

Within the peer to peer program with Stephan Lutermann I had the opportunity to be invited to Hamburg Hochschule for Music and Theater and I invited him to Istanbul to work with my choir Chromas in August. As a result of this exchange program I believe many singers got inspired, learned new ways of doing music and developed their musicianship for the better both in Istanbul and Hamburg.

During my workshop days in Hamburg I worked with 18 students from Hochschule for Music and Theater – both under graduates & post graduates were in the group. They have been mostly studying church music and choir leading. The workshop consisted of different parts of input: Vocal Painting, Literature Rehearsing and Conducting. During these sessions the participants learned the improvisational method of Vocal Painting and also practiced using it talking turns. At the end of two days they learned more than 40+ signs and started to have fun with this great pedagogical method. I heard that after the workshop they asked Stephan if they could include Vocal Painting in their regular school work – always amazing to know that new inspiration gets further way than you ever hoped for. Besides ww worked on rehearsal techniques and how to work on details in different genres of music. I brought two pieces, one Turkish folk song, and one rhythmic music. The other two were from their own repertoire, where I tried to bring different aspects. And last but not least I worked with students conducting the music we practiced. 8 students took turns conducting and I really believe they did their best to try out the ideas they got.

With 2 great days with these amazing participants I totally felt inspired, excited to create and even more eager to learn different input from different cultures. I got very good feedback from the participants, they asked wonderful and very thoughtful questions and were very much interested in the musical work I shared and also the different musical scene we have here in Istanbul. We had a lot of time to reflect what we practiced and what they learned and even after the very first session they were so much into what we were doing, I was so glad to have a wonderful time at the workshop. And I believe P2P program is a perfect way to building bridges between different musical worlds, different musical ideas and musicians.

Thank you once again for the opportunity.

Başak Doğan