Uzun ince Bir Yoldayım

We uploaded a video of a Turkish folksong, Uzun İnce Bir Yoldayım (I'm On A Long Narrow Road) from previous concert in Izmir, Turkey. This is the first arrangement of a Turkish song for melodica & guitar. It might be rather surprise for us that we had not played Turkish music, considering for our big interest and love on the music.



The song, Uzun İnce Bir Yoldayım, is extremely popular in Turkey, has been continuously covered by many young musicians. The composer is Aşık Veysel Şatıroğlu, or just called as Aşık Veysel. Aşık, meaning 'one who is in love', is a minstrel or bard who traditionally travels with saz in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, and Iran. Veysel was born in a small village of the Şarkışla district, in central anatolia, in 1894. He was a blind musician lived in a time of a political and social upheaval—the fall of ottoman empire, founding of the Republic of Turkey, and a rapid modernisation in 20th century. (I overlap him a little with Miyagi Michio, a Japanese innovative koto player/composer. He was also blind, and coincidentally was born in the same year.)

The lyrics are full of metaphors and symbols, so it is difficult to translate into English (or Japanese). In the song, Veysel sings about his life, likening a narrow and long road which he enters "a door" and walks towards "another door"—the end, day and night.

Here are some photos taken when Ryusuke visited Veysel's village and home in 2010, looking for Veysel's trace.

 
Veysel's house

  
Şarkışla


The tomb of Asık Veysel

Pocket Penguin in Izmir, Turkey

Pocket penguin is now back in London from Izmir, Turkey, after finishing the concert and a performance in a private party. The modern and large city, Izmir had a fantastic weather during our stay. Far from raining, we saw absolute no cloud in such a profound blue sky. The temperature was twice or even three times more than London, so that was incapably hot for us!






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And this is how the venue of the concert and the party look alike. The party was held outside of a restaurant in front of the Aegean sea—the sunset was very beautiful (çok güzel!).

The following was the programme for the concert.


Part 1

Johann Sebastian Bach: Cello Suite III, Jesus Bleibet Meine Freude

Ryusuke Koarashi: A Fragment of Dreams, 13th April

John Dowland: Frog Galliard, A Piece without Title



Part 2

Kazufumi Miyazawa: Shimauta

Kengyo Yatsuhashi: Rokudan no Shirabe

Aşık Veysel: Kara Toprak, Uzun Ince Bir Yoldayım

W.A.Mozart: La Majör Piyano Sonata No. 11 K331

Ryusuke Koarashi: Çok Güzeller


This time, notably, we tried to arrange some Turkish pieces as our new repertoire. Kara Toprak and Uzun ince Bir Yoldayım are very well known folk song among Turkish people—also our favourites, composed by a blind minstrel, A şık Veysel Şatıroğlu. We played Uzun ince Bir Yordayım in the party, too, and happily had generous comments from the guests.


We both have special interests in Turkey, Turkish culture, music, food, language etc. Ryusuke has been to Turkey every year since 2008, and also this was the third time for Ayumi. So having a performance in Turkey was a dream for us, and became true.



.....Here are some photos.

 　

(Ryusuke bought an electric kettle for making Turkish tea and a new bağlama which is actually the third one for him.)



(Tasty Foods. The front one is "Kumru", a sandwich with ham, cheese and tomato. The back is jacket potato called "Kumpir".)

　




(Ayumi had her birthday during the stay, celebrated with our friend's family and their neighbourhood. The cake is a homemade by mother of our friend.)




(Izmir is not exception of protesting which has been expanded from Taksim square into all around Turkey. We witnessed that many residents in Izmir express their support for the protesters by putting flags of Kemal Atatürk orbanging pots or pans at night.)



(The high street at Karşıyaka. Photos of the victims of the protest and messages are sticked on the tree-like object surrounded by people.)

Wandering Sound - Concert in Izmir, Turkey

Pocket Penguin's next concert will be in Izmir, Turkey.
If you live nearby, please come to see us!


Wandering Sound:

Melodica: Ayumi Toyama
Guitar: Ryusuke Koarashi 

Date: 21st June (FRI)
Time: 15.30 Start (15:15 open)
Venue: PROF. DR. TÜRKAN SAYLAN ALSANCAK CULTURAL CENTER
Cyprus Martyrs Caddesi No: 12 Alsancak-Izmir K.5, Turkey
Tel: Kemal Altintas 0533 266 90 46
Admission: 10TL

Click here for downloading the flyer.

After Bath International Music Festival

Pocket Penguin joined in Bath International Music Festival 2013. We played at Victoria Art Gallery located in the city centre of Bath, together with Lánre, a beautiful singer song writer who is also based in London. In spite of a bad weather, many people came to see Pocket Penguin and Lánre, all of us really enjoyed the nice acoustics of the gallery and the event.

Programme:

1st set

Bela Bartok: Three Hungarian Folksongs from the Csík District
Johann Sebastian Bach: Allemande from Cello Suite III
Ryusuke Koarashi: Fragments of Dreams, 13th April
Bulgarian Folk Songs:
・Vido, Vido, Byala Vido — Vida, Vida, originally arranged by Philip Koutev
・Radi na Radka Dumashe — Radi Said to Radka, originally arranged by Philip Koutev
・Bre, Petrunko — Why, Petrounka, originally arranged by Philip Koutev
Ryusuke Koarashi: Foreign Hill

2nd set

Musa Mirzoev: 6 pieces on material of Azerbaijan Folklore
1. Lyrical piece
2. First Dance
3. Second Dance
Johann Sebastian Bach: Sarabande & Bourre from Cello Suite III
Pocket Penguin: Prelude V
Bulgarian Folk Songs:
・Vecherai, Rado — Eat your supper, Rada, originally arranged by Philip Koutev.
・Polegnala e Todora — Todora Lay Down For a While, originally arranged by Philip Koutev
・Dilmano Dilbero — Dilmana, Beautiful Girl, originally arranged by Ivan Kavaldzhiev
Ryusuke Koarashi: Çok Güzeller

Bath International Music Festival

Pocket Penguin is going to perform at Bath International Music Festival.

Melodica: Ayumi Toyama
Guitar: Ryusuke Koarashi

Date: 24th May (FRI)
Time: 6:00pm-6:30pm/7:00pm-7:30pm
Place: the Victoria Art Gallery
Admission: Free

Also there will be another performance by a singer, Lánre.
Please check here for her details.

Hope to see you there.

After the charity concert at East Finchley Methodist Church

We've just finished a charity concert at East Finchley Methodist Church in North London last Sunday. It was a lovely day, we enjoyed very mild and warm weather.

Most of the audiences were new to hear music of Pocket Penguin, but we got good feedback from them. And we really appreciate people who generously donated to a music school in Palestine, Al Kamandjâti, that was the main purpose of this concert.

Programme:

Bela Bartok: Three Hungarian Folksongs from the Csík District
Johann Sebastian Bach: Cello Suite III
Pocket Penguin: Prelude 1 & 4
Keigo Fujii: Variations on the theme SHABONDAMA (P&G)
Ryusuke Koarashi: Walking through a Forest
Bulgarian Folk Songs:
・Vido, Vido, Byala Vido — Vida, Vida, originally arranged by Philip Koutev
・Radi na Radka Dumashe — Radi Said to Radka, originally arranged by Philip Koutev
・Bre, Petrunko — Why, Petrounka, originally arranged by Philip Koutev
・Vecherai, Rado — Eat your supper, Rada, originally arranged by Philip Koutev.
・Polegnala e Todora — Todora Lay Down For a While, originally arranged by Philip Koutev
・Dilmano Dilbero — Dilmana, Beautiful Girl, originally arranged by Ivan Kavaldzhiev
John Dowland: A Piece without Title, Forlorn Hope Fancy
Ryusuke Koarashi: Çok Güzeller

We have been playing Bach’s prelude of Cello Suite III on its own, but this time we included the entire pieces of the suite (Prelude, Almande, Courante, Sarabande, Bourre and Gigue) into the programme, that was our first attempt. Upon request of the church, we played one piano and guitar piece, “Variations on the theme SHABONDAMA”. That was the piece we played for the Great East Japan Earthquake in two years ago. At the same concert for the earthquake, we played Dowland Returns(for narration and guitar) composed by Yuji Takahashi, which he used musical fragments and words by/about John Dowland. This time we played two pieces from Dowland’s own works by newly arranging for melodica and guitar. Bulgarian Folk Songs were perhaps the highlight of the programme of this time. Ryusuke has had a special interest to Bulgarian music for over 15 years—constantly attending concerts and collecting the materials (recordings & books), he had even written an essay about it when he studied at the Guildhall school. We have often played Kopanitsa, a piece of Bulgarian dance, to our programme. We gained new repertoire by “re”arranging some well known arrangements of folk songs by Philip Koutev and Ivan Kavaldzhiev for Bulgarian female choir.

Charity Concert in East Finchley

We will have a charity concert to support a music school for children in Palestine, at East Finchley Methodist Church in north London. All the donations will go to a nonprofit organisation, Al Kamandjâti, who runs the school in Ramallah in Palestine. The organisation offers music lesson for children who have to survive in poor and violent situation depriving opportunity of any kind of education.

Al Kamandjâti says “We must give our children the opportunity to think beyond soldiers and tanks. They must think creatively, not about the destruction of their country, but about rebuilding their civilization.”— quoted from Al Kamandjâti’s website

As being musician, we still want to believe a certain power of music to open up people’s imagination beyond a confined situation. Our hope is to hear a new music, new sound on different perspective, by those children in a future when they grow up, not sound of gun and missile.

To the programme, we are thinking to include some latest works, both new arrangements and compositions, and also, upon a request of the church, some pieces of guitar & piano which we have not played almost for a year. Let’s see what will happen..!

Melodica/Piano: Ayumi Toyama
Guitar: Ryusuke Koarashi

“Unconventional Convention Conventional Unconvention”
Date: 14th April (SUN)
Time 19:30 - 21:30
Venue: East Finchley Methodist Church
Address: High Road, East Finchley, London N2 8AJ
Collection in aid of Music school in Palestine (Al Kamandjâti)

Click here to download the flyer.

Click here to download the leaflet of Al Kamandjâti