Handcraft / Elisi
Handcraft was born out of two harpists’ decision to play Turkish music. Istanbul based harpists Şirin Pancaroğlu and Meriç Dönük have known eachother since 2000. Trained in Europe and the USA, Şirin is Turkey’s leading harpist. She is equally at home with the music of her country as she is with mainstream harp repertoire, improvisation, avant garde, tango and semi-staged performances. Over the last years her various collaborative projects have been perceived as striking examples bridging the long-existing gaps between different styles of music as well as between musicians in Turkey.
The Mersin (Southern Turkey) born, Istanbul educated Meriç was once Şirin’s student. A curious musical mind, she is now settled into the Istanbul music scene where she plays with her jazz quartett and works with a variety of musicians the city proposes to her. Meriç has to her credit two international performance prizes and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Turkish music theory.
The two started playing together in 2003. Over the years they have accumulated a lot of ideas about how Turkish music could find a new life on their instrument. They were also not convinced that the relative co-existence of western and local musical traditions in Turkey had produced what it is capable of. In 2010 the duo paired up with American percussionist Jarrod Cagwin for a project in which they wanted interpret music of vocal and instrumental origins.
Born and raised in rural Iowa, USA, Jarrod graduated with honors from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1999 he began working with the Rabih Abou-Khalil Group, shortly thereafter relocating to Europe. He works closely with Eckermann Drums in Vienna, Austria, designing frame drums and drum sets. Jarrod is also a percussionist for the internationally acclaimed singer Sezen Aksu from Turkey. He made Istanbul his home in 2010 and continues performing and recording with an impressive array of musicians in Europe.
Motivated to get their ideas out, the trio to released their first CD titled Elisi (Handcraft) on the Kalan label in 2011. Back home and beyond, “Handcraft” was perceived by some as a “milestone” in Turkish music. To others it was pleasantly “music for everybody” or yet an attempt “to create a new music starting from an existing one”. Others said “the türküs were reborn on the strings of the harps”.
Handcraft adopts a careful yet highly imaginative approach to directions to follow starting from traditional music. While retaining the melodic, rhythmic and harmonic simplicity of their sources Pancaroglu, Donuk and Cagwin infuse it with the music of their “ears” where years of experience in a diverse range of musical cultures have built a language of its own. Concerned with creating a soundworld based on the unique inventory of sounds the harp and percussion are capable of it makes deliberate use of contemporary and avant-garde gestures to invite the music into unexplored territory.
Since the release of the album Handcraft performed in Turkey nearly twenty concerts in venues as diverse as neighbourhood cultural centers, open air summer festivals, concert halls. Handcraft was invited to perform on several occasions for special audiences on international women’s day, national holidays, and memorial events of important figures in Turkey.
For concerts abroad Handcraft receives the support of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is sponsored by Turkish Airlines and performed at festivals in Macedonia, UK, Netherlands and Belgium. In concert Handcraft often collaborates with guests artists and also features a second percussionist for acoustic symmetry of two harps surrounded by two percussions.