Singing Türküs together

Renowned musicians from three generations, baglama virtuosos and singers from Anatolian and Alevi folk music - present a polyphonic performance of folk songs (Türküs), reviving a thousand years old tradition.

“Birlikte Türküler Söylüyoruz”  - “Singing Türküs together”
Musicians from three generations, each a world-famous baglama and singing virtuoso in his or her own right, have come together to revive the thousand years old, but nearly extinct tradition of the polyphonic performance of folk songs (Türküs). The group consists of leading musicians from Anatolian and Alevi folk music: Musa Eroglu, Sabahat Akkiraz and Mustafa Özarslan.

In the first part of ‘Birlikte Türküler Söylüyoruz’ the focus was on two stunning voices from Anatolia: Sabahat Akkiraz and Mustafa Özarslan, performing türküs and halay folk tunes.
The second part was reserved for the master baglama-player Musa Eroglu presenting Alevi songs. The latter represents a new generation of baglama musicians. In the final part all the artists came on stage together and treated the audience to an unforgettable farewell performance.

Sabahat Akkiraz

Sabahat Akkiraz was born in Sivas, where she grew up with Anatolian troubadours, the local musicians and singers, whose songs she learned to sing at an early age. They included renowned troubadour Aşık Davut Sulari, who was her most influential teacher. Sabahat Akkiraz has released ten albums. She sings songs from Anatolian folk music, including many songs from the mystical Alevi tradition, the culture of her ancestors, of which she has been one of Turkey's favourite interpreters since the seventies. Sabahat Akkiraz takes her tradtional music beyond the traditional realms, for example to the jazz scene. She also contributed to Mercan Dede's latest album, Su.


Mustafa Özarslan
Mustafa Özarslan, former front man of Grup Çig, is now working on a solo career. His warm bass voice enjoys an immense popularity in Turkey, as well as in the Netherlands.

Musa Eroglu

Musa Eroglu was born in Mersin, Southern Turkey in 1946 and over the past thirty years has made an extraordinary contribution to Anatolian folk music: as a collector of traditional melodies and songs, a composer of Alevi mystical songs, a music teacher, a researcher of Turkmen nomads and of course as a musician. The troubadour Musa Eroglu is a baglama player and singer of ballads old and new, Alevi Sufi songs and music, and a teller of legends and stories about Anatolia's ancient folk heroes fighting against tyrannical oppression, such as Dadaloglu, Köroglu and Karacaoglan (about whom he wrote a study). He has released various cassettes/CDs, solo and with other musicians such as Arif Sag (Baglama Resitali 1 and 2) or the well-known series of Alevi dialogue song (Muhabbet) with Muhlis Akarsu and Yavuz Top.  In Turkey he is very famous, some of his songs have made the Top Ten, such as the love song 'Mihriban', which will most certainly be requested at his Dutch concerts too. Musa Eroglu wrote several academic studies on music, including one for Unesco.

He has given recitals in Australia and in many European countries, soon becoming the Turkish audiences' favourite besides Arif Sag, something the Dutch audience concurred with after their succesful 1997 joint tour of the Netherlands, organised by Kulsan.