Seven years ago, Murat Aydemir and Christos Barbas recorded their first album The Mountain and the Tree in Istanbul, containing original compositions for Tanbur & Ney. Since then, they have played concerts in Greece, Spain, Japan & Cyprus, further developing the interaction and relationship between them. In their newest album Book of Birds, recorded in Brussels for the Seyir Muzik label in October 2024, they present a collection of contemporary compositions inspired by and based on the modal traditions of the wider Middle Eastern and Mediterranean worlds. Their unique mastery of their instruments serves as a prism, a meeting point for different pieces from different composers to take shape.
The duo of Tanbur and Ney is considered to be the perfect vehicle for the development and expression of the classical makam of the Ottoman-Turkish tradition, especially in the classical body of music and in the ritual repertoire of the Mevlevi order. Wanting to expand further and present new repertoire, the two musicians invited their friends – prominent figures in the world of modal music, Ross Daly, Kelly Thoma, Evgenios Voulgaris, and Sokratis Sinopoulos – to contribute pieces they felt could suit the duo.
As the album evolved, the theme of birds emerged, a recurrent motif in Sufi poetry with multiple and diverse symbolisms: birds represent the connection between the material and the spiritual realm; they are intermediaries between earth and sky, messengers from the beyond. In folk stories, they often speak the language of humans. Birds also convey a powerful reminder of the importance of community: the pertinence of a group as a vehicle for learning, sharing and growing, as complex and multi-dimensional relations and formations are being created, flocks, for passing on older stories and even creating new ones; in our case a book of musical stories.
Through the rich sound of the Tanbur, with its natural harmonic aura created by the sympathetic strings, and the airy, meditative sound of the Ney, Murat Aydemir & Christos Barbas give their own version of the story – reading the Book of Birds and navigating by way of improvisation, attentive listening, and careful nuance through this world of sounds, colors, and spirits.
Book of Birds reflects the Turkish-Greek duo’s artistic growth, their commitment to refining and pushing forward the boundaries of their art, and stands as a testament not only to their friendship and profound connection to their roots and community, but also to the labour and creativity of a much wider collective of artists and a musical scene built over the last decades around, though not confined to, the Labyrinth Musical Workshop – the place where they first met and played together. You can read more information about each track here.
Murat Aydemir, apart from being a real virtuoso on his instrument, is also an excellent connoisseur on the Theory of Music. He has written and published a book, a comprehensive guide on the makams, which widely considered to be the best and well explained book on this subject. You can check his book here (english version) and here (translated to greek by Sophia Kompotiati).