Music

Classical music (sanat) is a vibrant part of the Turkish music tradition. Like many other cultural legacies from the Ottoman period, classical music was viewed with suspicion and labeled “too Arab” after the Republic was established. It was not until the late 1970s that sanat was rehabilitated. Since then, a conservatory dedicated to training classical musicians was opened in Istanbul.

To fill the musical void, indigenous Turkish folk music was heavily promoted. Not all folk music is accorded equal treatment, however. Anatolian-style lute (saz) music flourished under decades of official sponsorship via radio and state-run television programming. Other styles, such as those of Kurdish and Laz ethnic minorities, received far less public exposure. In the case of the latter, a Laz musician, who had performed publicly in the past, was denied airtime in 2005 after Lazuri was not included in an EU-mandated official minority language list.