Derya Türkan & Sokratis Sinopoulos – Soundplaces (Seyir Muzik, 2020)
Soundplaces, the 2020 release by Derya Türkan and Sokratis Sinopoulos, offers a contemplative, transcultural conversation through sound. It is an intimate journey charted by resonance, memory, and shared heritage. As the two master musicians trace a route across the Aegean, from Istanbul to Mytilini, Konya to the Cyclades, the listener is invited into an alluring dialogue that is both deeply personal and historically expansive.
From the outset, Türkan and Sinopoulos present their instruments, the Turkish kamancha (kemençe) and the Greek lyra, as kin. Though born of different cultures, the two bowed lutes share a common ancestor, and their proximity underscores the album’s larger theme: that borders, especially in music, are porous and often illusory. What results is not a hybrid, nor a mere juxtaposition, but something more profound, a fluid, intuitive and sweeping exchange that honors the specificity of tradition while reaching for something beyond it.
Indeed, this project thrives on contrasts that never clash. Türkan, rooted in the Ottoman classical tradition, plays with a lyricism that is both poised and introspective. Sinopoulos, equally virtuosic, brings a gravity shaped by his training in Byzantine music and his fearless forays into improvisation. Together, they communicate in a wordless syntax, one that favors nuance over flamboyance. Listening to them is akin to overhearing an ancient conversation resumed after centuries, broken off, perhaps, by empire or exile, but never truly lost.
Buy Soundplaces.
Author: Tyler Bennet
