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Cüneyt Ersin Mıhcı: Forging National Music on Both Sides of the Aegean in the 19th and 20th Centuries (2025)
10.12.2025, 19:00-21:00
Orient-Institut Istanbul
Language: English
This evening will be dedicated to a discussion of the book Forging National Music on Both Sides of the Aegean in the 19th and 20th Centuries (2025) by Cüneyt Ersin Mıhcı. The study examines how music evolved as a means of expressing national identity and belonging in nineteenth-century Greece and the late Ottoman Empire. By tracing the cultural and political conditions that shaped musical debates and school songs in an era of reforms, the book examines how composers and intellectuals imagined national music amid processes of modernization and nation-building. Following a short introductory talk by the author on the scope and methods of his research, the discussion will continue with two distinguished experts, Martin Greve and Evangelia Chaldæaki who reflect on the book’s insights into the intertwined histories of music, nationalism, and identity between Greece and Ottoman Turkey.
The book can be downloaded here:
https://books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/heibooks/catalog/book/1255
Biography of the speakers:
Cüneyt Ersin Mıhcı graduated from Heidelberg University and studied historical musicology. In his doctoral dissertation, Forging National Music on Both Sides of the Aegean in the 19th and 20th Centuries, he looked at how music contributed to the formation of national identities in Greece and the late Ottoman Empire. He mainly focused on the intellectual discourses and on school education in music. Ersin Mihci worked as a research associate at the DFG-Project Corpus Musicae Ottomanicae, where he studied nineteenth-century music collections in Hampartsum-notation. Since February 2024, he has been head of the musicology research area at the Orient-Institute Istanbul where he is conducting research for his new postdoctoral project, The Architecture of the hâne in Ottoman Vocal Music. In this ongoing study, he examines forms of musical transmission in the Ottoman vocal music repertoire. He aims to identify links between usûl and arûz, which he considers essential elements in Ottoman vocal music performances.
Evangelia Chaldæaki holds a PhD from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, where she completed her dissertation with the title “Folk Music in Turkish and Greek Musical Collections of the Late Ottoman Period: Popular Culture and Inter-Communal Relations”, as well as a Bachelor in Turkish Language, Literature and History and an MA in Folklore Studies and Folklore Culture from the same school. She also holds a diploma in Byzantine Music. She is an experienced researcher whose work focuses on Greek and Turkish music, culture, and folklore. In addition to her academic pursuits, she is an active musician and a teacher of Greek folk singing. She conducts a Greek folk choir in Athens. Currently, she works as postdoctoral researcher and adjunct lecturer at the Department of Music Studies, University of Ioannina, as well as a research associate at the Orient-Institut Istanbul (DFG research project Corpus Musicae Ottomanicae).
Martin Greve has been working on music in Turkey for more than thirty years, focusing in particular on music among ethnic and religious minorities, as well as on music and migration. His latest research project dealt with music in greater Dersim. He is affiliated with the Orient Institute Istanbul and the Orient Institute Beirut.
The language of the event is English. Participation is free of charge. To attend in person, please register below. To join online no registration is necessary.
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VENUE
Orient-Institut Istanbul
Galip Dede Cad. 65, Şahkulu Mah., TR – 34421 Istanbul
Tel: +90 212 293 60 67
oiist@oiist.org | www.oiist.org
Zoom
https://maxweberstiftung.zoom-x.de/j/64558472724?pwd=b7RSLm7nLWhFLubTDq2uY7PI2Gozyj.1
ID: 645 5847 2724
Code: 445632
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