Berna Efeoğlu

24 Nisan 2013, Çarşamba, 20.00

İTÜ Maçka, İlhan Usmanbaş Salonu

Berna Efeoğlu

1982 yılında İzmir’de doğdu. 6 yaşındayken Müge Sağlam ile başladığı piyano çalışmalarına 2000 yılına kadar devam etti. Galatasaray Üniversitesi’nde Bilgisayar Mühendisliği okudu. Dört yıllık çalışma hayatının ardından kariyerini değiştirmeye karar verdi. Bu süreçte Engin Gürkey ile tanıştı ve Gürkey Perküsyon Atölyesi’nde perküsyon eğitimine başladı.

2010 yılında İTÜ Dr. Erol Üçer Müzik İleri Araştırmalar Merkezi (MIAM)’da Performans/Perküsyon alanında yüksek lisans eğitimine kabul edildi.

Kerem Kırca’yla cajón, Mehdi Darvishi ile def çalıştı. MIAM’da Engin Gürkey ile başladığı çalışmalarına Amy Salsgiver’la devam etmektedir.

Haziran 2012’den beri İstanbul Film Müzikleri Orkestrası-IFMO’nun bir üyesidir.

Born in İzmir, 1982, Berna Efeoğlu began her musical training on the piano at the age of six with Müge Sağlam and continued until 2000. She studied Computer Engineering in Galatasaray University. After 4 years work experience, she decided to change her path. In this period, she met Engin Gürkey and she started to her percussion training in Gürkey Percussion Atelier.

She was accepted to the Master of Music Program in Percussion Performance Department at ITU’s Dr. Erol Üçer Center for Advanced Studies in Music (MIAM), in 2010.

She studied cajón with Kerem Kırca and def with Mehdi Darvishi. She continues her percussion training with Amy Salsgiver at MIAM.

She has been performing with IFMO (İstanbul Film Müzikleri Orkestrası) since June 2012.

Projects & Concerts

3 April 2013 - … MIAM Composer’s Concert, Borusan Music House, İstanbul

January 2013 - … “Ah! Kosmos über live” Project, İstanbul

June 2012 - …Percussionist in IFMO (Istanbul Movie Music Orchestra)

May 2012 - …MIAM Chamber Music Concerts, İstanbul

15 May 2012  Percussion Recital, İTÜ MİAM, İstanbul

21 March 2012  “Music Creativity Limited” Concert, Borusan Music House, İstanbul

26 February 2011 “Four Folksongs from Anatolia for Traditional Turkish Music singer and Ensemble” by Evrim Demirel, Medica, İstanbul

Festivals & Workshops

15-22 October 2012   (Instructor) Body music workshops with children during “Mardin and Its Towns Meet Art” Festival, Mardin

9-14 October 2012     Body Music Workshops with Stenio Mendes, Fernando Barba and Keith Terry during 5. Body Music Festival, İstanbul

22 September 2012    KeKeÇa Body Percussion Marathon, İstanbul

Program

Steve Reich (1926 - )

Clapping Music, arranged for body percussion by Berna Efeoğlu and Nihal Saruhanlı

Nihal Saruhanlı – Percussion

J.S. Bach (1685 - 1750)

Violin Sonata in A minor, BWV 1003 – III. Andante

Dave Hollinden (1958 - )

Cold Pressed, for multiple percussion, in 6 movements without pause

Pungent, vivid

Urgent, animated

Obsessive, persistent

Spirited, with swing
Dark, ritualistic

Eager, anxious

Ross Edwards (1936 - )

Marimba Dances – 1

Intermission

Javier Alvarez (1967 - )

Temazcal, for maracas and tape

Nazlı Ufuk Sakioğlu (1987 - )

Tut Nefesini, for timpani and voice

Rina Altaras – Voice

Mark Ford (1958)

Head Talk

Alperen Alkan - Percussion

Mohammed Fadel - Percussion

Koray Kaplan - Percussion

Amy Salsgiver – Percussion

Program Notes

Clapping Music (1972)

Clapping Music was written when Reich wanted to (in his own words) "create a piece of music that needed no instruments beyond the human body". It has a twelve beat rhythm based the West African 'bell pattern' delivered by two musicians, one of whom maintains the same rhythm through the whole piece. After several repetitions, the second 'player' jumps one beat ahead and starts looping the rhythm from its second beat alongside the original version. After several more repetitions, the second player jumps forward by a further beat and repeats the process until  all  twelve  jumps forward have been completed so that the players are eventually synchronized again, returning to their original unison. After more than thirty years since Clapping Music was composed, it remains a stunning piece - the auditory equivalent of an optical illusion - in which the listener becomes increasingly beguiled by ever shifting surges of sound made up of the intricate patterns arising from harmonics of the basic hand claps as well as the fundamentals.

Berna and Nihal have arranged Clapping Music for body percussion. The point is to create and hear not only different rhythmic combinations but also different accents and tones within these combinations.

Violin Sonata No.2 in A minor, BWV 1003 (III. Andante) (1720)

J.S Bach’s set of six unaccompanied sonatas and partitas for the violin represent the unchallenged peak in solo violin music, both in technique and in expressive variety. The third movement Andante of the a minor violin sonata BWV 1003 is one of the great pieces for solo violin. The Andante, which is in C major, offers a flowing melody over a steady bass line. A third and a fourth voice enter from time to time to enrich the harmony. 

This sonata was later transcribed for harpsichord by the composer, catalogued as BWV 964.

Cold Pressed (1990)

“The term "cold pressed" refers to the method of extracting olive oil which results in the most robust and full-bodied flavor. Syncopation, contrasting timbres and rock-influenced style are blended together in music which is vivid, spicy and obsessively persistent.”

- Dave Hollinden

Hollinden keeps his player busy, moving rapidly over the nineteen instruments in the set-up, except for a brief interlude where the tempo slows. The performance directions marked in reflect the spirit of the music: "pungent, vivid," "urgent, animated," "obsessive, persistent," "spirited, with swing,", "dark, ritualistic" and "eager, anxious."

Marimba Dances (1982)

"This light-hearted (though highly virtuosic) piece consists of two radiant dances framing an introspective, recitative-like interlude. The musical idiom is that of my Piano Concerto, composed in the same year, which conservative critics found so threatening in the 1980s. In such pieces as these it was my intention to reintroduce levity, joy and exuberance into ‘serious’ music, which at the time seemed in danger of ossification. The marimba writing is influenced by a transcription I made of music for African harp in my reconstruction of a Madegascan folksong. This folksong, became part of my instrumental sextet Laikan, composed in 1979 for the British ensemble The Fires of London and its conductor, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, with whom I studied in the 1960s. The marimba part was first performed by Greg Knowles, to whom Marimba Dances is dedicated.”

-Ross Edwards

Temazcal (1984)

“The title of this work stems from the Nahuatl (ancient aztec) word literally meaning " water that burns". The maracas material throughout Temazcal is drawn from traditional rhythmic patterns found in most Latin-American musics, namely those from the Caribbean region, southeastern Mexico, Cuba, Central America and the flatlands of Colombia and Venezuela. In these musics in general, the maracas are used in a purely accompanimental manner as part of small instrumental ensembles. The only exception is, perhaps, that of the Venezuelan flatlands, where the role of the maracas surpasses that of mere cadence and accent punctuation to become a soloistic instrument in its own right. It was from this instance that I imagined a piece where the player would have to master short patterns and combine them with great virtuosity to construct larger and complex rhythmic structures which could then be juxtaposed, superimposed and set against similar passages on tape, thus creating a dense polyrhythmic web. This would eventually disintegrate clearing the way for a traditional accompanimental style of playing in a sound world reminiscent of the maracas' more usual environment.

The sound sources on tape include harp, a folk guitar and double bass pizzicatti for the tape's attacks, the transformation of bamboo rods being struck together for the rhythmic passages and rattling sounds created with the maracas themselves for other gestures. The tape was realized at the Electronic Music Studio at the Royal College of Music during the last months of 1983.

The piece is dedicated to Luis Julio Toro who first performed it at the EMAS series in London in January 1984. Since receiving an honourable mention at the 1985 Bourges Electro-Acoustic Music Festival, Temazcal has been regularly performed and broadcast by percussionists worldwide.”

-Javier Alvarez

Tut Nefesini (2012)

“ "Tut Nefesini" is "Hold your breath" in Turkish. Holding breath is a metaphor I used about being patient, meaning that, sometimes we need to be patient and 'hold our breath' in order to overcome problems in life. I wrote the text in 2006, and composed it in 2012 by the request of Rina Altaras and with the assistance of Amy Salsgiver. This piece has been premiered at MIAM Composers's Concert, Borusan Music House on April 3rd, 2013. “

-Nazlı Ufuk Sakioğlu

Tut Nefesini

Açıl susam açıl!

Açıl da çıksın içinden büyüler

yeni renkler, sesler, parıldayan elmaslar...

Yorulmadan bilemezsin,

halimi anlayamazsın...

Ölümü tadamazsın,

hayata doyamazsın...

Gümüş hançere saplandı kalbimiz;

onu yenip yarınlara, umutlara atıldı

koca birer taş yığınıydı kapılarımız;

bir söze aldanıp ardına dek açıldı...

Yıldızlar çöktü üzerime

İnsanlar devam ediyorlar

hayata, nefes almaya.

Ben sarhoşum, bilmem bu dünyayı

Anlamam özgürlükleri, yıldızları.

Kolay mıdır bu köprüden geçmek

Dengede durup, 

kalabalıktan sağ çıkmak?

Bana sormayın. Beni yormayın.

Uyandırmayın...

Dağıldım on parçaya

Sonrası yok

Çok gürültüdeyim

Yetmez bunlar bana

Head Talk(1987)

“Mark Ford's Head Talk provides the percussion quintet with a dose of sophisticated comic relief. The equipment necessary is somewhat unusual: six pretuned heads--ranging in size from a 10 to a 22; a used 14 snare head; two bongo heads; one 14 coated head; two Pinstripe heads; and five performer-prepared papered-heads for the surprise ending (each performer smashing the drum head over the head of the drummer!). The five performers must have or develop a controlled sense of humor and must theatrically play off each other. The performers sit on the stage in a semi-circle, and Head Talk starts with the pretuned heads being twirled on stage. The opening rhythmic motive has a definitive rock-samba groove to it, and each performer ends up imitating the opening motive. The composition lasts about nine minutes. “

- Jim Lambert Percussive Notes, April 1996