While Turkey’s musical sensibilities embrace the classical and the modern, including a decidedly Turkish approach to pop music, Turkey’s first love resides in the sounds of the heartland. These age-old poems set to music are played and replayed in Türkü Evi, at rural weddings and in lively meyhane or Turkish tavernas, with lyrics and rhythms played on the saz or oud that encourage dancing.
These odes to Anatolia are a ubiquitous part of Turkey’s fabric, found in meyhanes along the narrow backstreets of Istanbul’s Beyoglu district, inside the ramparts of Ankara’s antique fortress, along the Kordon in Izmir, and in countless bars and resorts along the Mediterranean coast.