Centuries of coexistence had a deep impact on the musical and devotional traditions of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the lands of the Ottoman Empire. Multi-layered interfaith interactions shaped the melodies and hymns of religious communities.

This musical program celebrates these powerful affinities through diverse Ottoman spiritual traditions, especially from the tumultuous nineteenth century. The concert program, performed by the award-winning Dünya Ensemble, will include mainstream Sunni Muslim, Christian, and Jewish music from the era, as well as hymns and compositions of several different Sufi brotherhoods along with the heterodox mystical traditions of the Alevis and Bektaşis and the Sabbatian Ma’aminim (devotees of the Jewish messiah Sabbatai Tsvi).

Your guides to the Ottoman sacred soundscapes of the past will be the composer/performer and professor Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol, together with the Israeli scholar of Ottoman Jewish culture Dr. Hadar Feldman Samet. Musical performance and historical introduction will combine to illustrate many known and forgotten mesmerizing tunes and multilingual lyrics from the Ottoman world.

Dünya Ensemble is:

• Dr. Hadar Feldman Samet
• Mehmet Ali Sanhkol
• Beth Bahia Cohen
• Burcu Güleç
• Bertram Lehmann
• George Lernis

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