Dümtek invites you to unpack the concepts of nostalgia and past musical heritage in a self-reflective way over a cosy dinner table with delicious Turkish meze and rakı. In the company of Berlin-based artists Gizem Oruç, Maviş Güneşer and Petra Nachtmanova, we will discuss how revisiting past eras of music affects musical practices and culture of today.

Musical revivals are recurring phenomena in the history of popular music, in which younger generations of musicians either refer to the past eras of the popular music history or interpret and popularize traditional musical styles. These processes of reviving often attempt to interpret not only certain musical idioms, but also a period of time experienced only through mediation, and in the end evoke a valuable conception of the past. 

“When We Hear Back: Revising Musical Time and Nostalgia” explores the dynamics of interpreting the musical past. What is the attraction of going back to an era not lived, but experienced through mediation? Do we romanticize the past? In referring to the past, are we essentializing? How do these tendencies relate to the diasporic experience? What are the problems, pitfalls and contradictions of revising the past through music?

Funded by Musicboard and Initiative Musik

Petra Nachtmanovas musical paths have led her from the capital of Classical Music Vienna through Renaissance and Baroque music in England, local Chinese Pop Idol in Ningbo, Bulgarian Polyphonic choirs, Turkish Bağlama Music as far as the Persian Radif Tradition. As a singer and as a researcher of folk music and poetry, Petra focuses on Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. Her work on Turkish Music and the Bağlama has been developing since 2010. She has represented Austria in the International TRT Türkcevizyon Festival 2014 in Denizli. 

Maviş Güneşer started her music career in Istanbul with the group Agire Jiyan. In 1998 she released her first solo album. Since 2000, she works in Berlin with the female singer Group Lilith, which collects and sings songs for women in German, French, Yiddish, Turkish, Zazaca, and Kurdish. Together with Metin and Kemal Kahraman she published  a number of albums and worked on film music for documentaries and fictions. They gave concerts in many European and Turkish cities. Her latest solo album Ax de Vaji she released in March 2019.

Gizem Oruç is a musician, producer, sound designer, educator and organizer, based in Berlin. They are involved in creative collectives, including the trans-feminist r’n’besque cover band Gazino Neukölln and the queer-DIY space Raumerweiterungshalle. They composed the soundtrack of the experimental documentary #resistayol that portrays the LGBTI+ community during Gezi Protests in Istanbul. Alias 6zm, Gizem released two EPs since 2014 and performed in a number of venues in Europe, North America and Turkey. They fuse the artistic and analytical dimensions of their work.