Musicologist Kıvılcım Yıldız Şenürkmez is our guest speaker at Music and Literature this month with a presentation in which she examines the interaction of music and literature in Richard Strauss’ Salome and Elektra operas. The lecture will be held at the Museum on Wednesday, May 17 at 6:30 p.m.
                     
According to Şenürkmez, in Berlin, at the turn of the 20th century, works stressing moral and emotional turmoil and excess were produced in every area of the arts. The approach in literature was to suggest or evoke through delicate phrases what could not be expressed or described directly. In such a context, Richard Strauss transformed Oscar Wilde’s Salome into an opera and, in collaboration with Hugo von Hofmannsthal, composed the opera Elektra. Both works show a proclivity for the supernatural, various paradoxes, violence and passion.

Using the Salome and Elektra operas as her starting point Şenürkmez examines how the themes in the plays were regenerated into music and addresses the essential features in the depiction of the characters.

Kıvılcım Yıldız Şenürkmez After attending the State Conservatory at Istanbul Technical University, Şenürkmez followed up her music education in the Viola Department at the State Conservatory of Mimar Sinan University. She graduated from the Department of Musicology at the same university in 1998. Şenürkmez then completed a master’s program at King’s College in the UK where she obtained her master’s degree in music in 2000. She began her graduate assistantship in the Department of Musicology at the Mimar Sinan University State Conservatory in 2001. Since 2002, she has been attending a Ph.D. program in the same university and working on a doctoral thesis entitled Kültürel, Ekonomik ve Yasal Perspektifte Türkiye’de Klasik Müzik Etkinlikleri [A Cultural, Economic and Legal Approach to Classical Music Activities in Turkey]

Voyvoda Street Lectures Music and Literature Kıvılcım Yıldız Şenürkmez “The Interaction of Music and Literature in Richard Strauss’ Salome and Elektra Operas” Wednesday, May 17, 2006 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. Free admission The Ottoman Bank Museum Bankalar (Voyvoda) Caddesi 35/37 (0212) 334 22 70