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Cigdem Aslan
Cigdem Aslan: Mortissa
by Chris M. Slawecki
Ҫiğdem Aslan was born in the cultural crossroads of Istanbul. She moved to London, hoping to advance her onstage and classroom studies in various musical cultures; these studies include her Songs of Smyrna project, which celebrates rebetiko and sephardic music from Turkey, and joining the She'Koyokh Klezmer Ensemble and the Balkan group Dunav. Mortissa is her solo debut, composed of rebetiko and smyrniac songs (often called the blues of the Agean") from the 1920s and '30s. Most of the songs ...
read moreCigdem Aslan Touches History with "Mortissa"
Source:
FlipswitchPR, LLC
A century or more ago, in cities like Smyra, Thessaloniki, and Istanbul, Greeks and Turks lived peacefully side by side during the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. People laughed and loved and sang together. In the bars and the hash houses, they played the music that was the root of what came to be called rebetiko, songs about poor people like themselves, the criminals and lovers, the musicians, the beauties and the strong women known as mortissas. Çiğdem Aslan ...
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Music
Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson