"Sacrificial Ritual in Opera Repertoire"

The Ottoman Bank Museum is hosting Evrim Hikmet Özler at Music Talks this month, with a presentation on the place of music in rituals over the ages. The lecture is scheduled for Wednesday, March 21, at 6:30 p.m.

Explaining that both visual and aural elements form an intrinsic part of rituals thus making them perfect material for opera, Özler will explore this musical genre’s approach to sacrificial rites – a practice that displays great cultural diversity and whose origins stretch back to prehistoric times.  

Following the lecture, the Dilbağ Tokay and Emine Serdaroğlu cello-piano duo will perform Franz Joseph Haydn’s Adagio Cantabile and Bohuslav Martinu’s Five Variations on a Slovakian Theme.

Evrim Hikmet

Özler Born in 1979 in Istanbul, Özler studied the violin at the Mimar Sinan State Conservatory and in 2004, completed her university studies in the Department of Musicology of the same institution. Özler is currently working on her master’s thesis at the State Conservatory of the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts.

DİLBAĞ TOKAY

Tokay began her cello training at the Mimar Sinan State Conservatory under Prof. Reşit Erzin, with whom she still works today. She has taken part in a number of concerts and festivals, both in Turkey and abroad, including in the Turkish Embassy in Pakistan, the Istanbul Music Festival and the Afyon Classical Music Festival. Tokay, who has performed chamber music live and made television recordings with various string quartets and piano trios, is currently working on her Ph.D. at the Mimar Sinan State Conservatory where she is also a graduate researcher.

EMİNE SERDAROĞLU

Serdaroğlu began playing the piano with Prof. Ersin Onay and continued her studies with Fuat Türkay and Prof. Cana Gürmen. After winning a scholarship to the School of Music at Illinois Wesleyan University, she obtained her master’s degree in piano and piano pedagogy under Prof. William Race at the University of Texas at Austin. She has given several recitals in Ankara and Istanbul, in Cyprus, and in Germany. Apart from her solo concerts, she has also taken part in various chamber music ensembles and accompanied numerous opera singers. Emine Serdaroğlu is currently a faculty member in the Department of Fine Arts at Boğaziçi University and working toward her Ph.D. thesis in the Department of Musicology at the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts.