ZAMEK Culture Centre

Over the three centuries of its presence in Europe and Asia, clarinet’s career has been impressively successful. Most likely, this has been due to the highly distinctive sound, which at the same time easily becomes friends with other instruments. Its warm nasal tonalities bring Jewish and Roma culture to mind, both of which are universes born out of fusion of the European and Oriental element.

With the sounds of his clarinet, Cüneyt Sepetçi masterly paints musical landscapes
of the life of Turkish Roma, images filled
with energy and spilling vitality all over.
The profuse, thick arrangements with the dominant role of percussion refer to the folklore of Albania and Macedonia, while the distinctive contribution of bass guitar makes one think of ... Andalusian flamenco nuevo.

The music created by Sepetçi and his Orchestra Dolapdere is a proof that traditional forms never fail to raise desire to dance which may sometime verge on ecstatic. Sepetçi convincingly demonstrates the vigour and openness of Roma music, at the same time showing its extraordinary potential
for blending sounds, forms and genres.
This potential is a perfectly natural aftermath of history of the Roma people, for whom constant migration and adaptation to new circumstances is how life is lived.

Cüneyt Sepetçi – clarinet
Ahmet Demirkiran – cümbüş
Ismail Papiş – violin
Ümit Adakale – darbuka