Byline: Nia Bowers
Regardless of the genre, creating music is a compulsion for all serious artists. Brother and sister Ümit and Dr. Ayşe Önder presented original works that blended cultural influences in a world premier concert event at St. Mary’s Islington in London last month. Turkey’s Anatolian music stylings were set within the context of a modern orchestra featuring luminaries from the UK’s orchestral and recording scene, including multiple members of the BBC Concert Orchestra. Conducted by Peter Michael Davison, the musicians and the compositions served as a reminder of the vibrant Classical scene and how it is invigorated by cross-cultural music conversations.
Sharply contradicting the assumptions that most audiences have regarding this particular genre, both performed in the ensembles which presented their original works at this event; an approach that instilled this as living music rather than the creations of those long since passed. This also brought a unification to the performance and intention that is so rarely seen in present times. The underlying message was prominent; don’t think of Classical music as something originating in the past.
Ümit Önder’s “Kamancha Concerto” found inspiration in the 2016 film Rauf, directed by Barış Kaya who desired a score with instrumentation indicative of the eastern region of Türkiye. This contemplative number featured soloist Göktuğ Çelik, whom Ümit specifically had in mind when creating the piece. In contrast, Ümit’s second contribution to the evening’s music titled “Das Meer” was composed for Germany’s Kammerphilharmonie Hamburg string orchestra. Both of these works found their presentation in the form of a string orchestra with Ümit in the 1st Violin chair. This configuration is particularly appealing to the composer who communicates, “The string orchestra has a quality that I find uniquely compelling. It offers a remarkable range of expression while preserving an essential unity of timbre. Even when the internal writing becomes dense, layered, or contrapuntal, the sound remains part of a single organic body. This is extremely important to me, because I am interested not only in melody or harmony as separate elements, but in how the music breathes as a whole. A string orchestra allows for great flexibility: it can be transparent and weightless, rhythmically incisive and structurally clear, or full, dark, and emotionally expansive. That range makes it a highly responsive medium for contemporary composition.”
“Music for String Orchestra” by Dr. Ayşe Önder at this live event also provided examples of elements specific to the composer’s homeland. The two-movement work contains passages shaped by Turkish Aksak rhythms which introduce asymmetrical accents and irregular groupings, enriching the rhythmic vocabulary and adding a distinctive kinetic character. The interplay between contrapuntal structure and these shifting rhythmic patterns creates a dynamic, tightly woven musical fabric that sustains tension and momentum throughout. In this work, the string orchestra functions not only as an ensemble but as a unified and continuously evolving sonic body, reflecting a contemporary classical approach in which texture, structure, and expressive gesture are closely interconnected. On piano, Dr. Önder accompanied soprano Oya Ergün (along with guitarist Onur Özçelik and a string orchestra) for “Voice”, an exploration of an internal emotional landscape, moving between fragility and expansion, and eventually dissolving back into silence.
Perhaps the most profound lesson of this concert performance was the understanding that, as expected with most “modern” musical genres, composition is closely connected to performance, forming a continuous artistic practice in which sound, structure, and expression emerge from the same inner source rather than existing as separate disciplines. As creators of this music and as performers, Ayşe and Ümit Önder challenge widely held concepts about Classical music. Additionally, they display that there is much to be gained creatively in the fusion of various cultural-music identities.