Oneirology 2

In Peter Brook’s 1979 film Meetings with Remarkable Men there is a scene in which musicians will attempt to produce a sound that will make the stones of a valley vibrate. In this re-enacting of a famous scene from Gurdieff’s memoires, Kudsi Erguner is one of the musician-actors performing on the screen. In the movie (and in the book), it is in fact a singer that finally succeeds at this, not the Ney. Oneirology 2 can perhaps be regarded as the ultimate attempt to amend this 42-year-old “failure” and enable Erguner’s Ney to finally accomplish this mythical task of producing a music with sounds that will eventually set a complete mountain valley into total vibration, this time in cooperation with van Dillen’s electronics/digitalics.

After repeated and careful listenings of Oscar van Dillen’s original composition, Kudsi Erguner recorded his Ney for the duration of approximately half an hour, in Paris, leaving it to van Dillen to recompose and position the improvised sections carefully, in Rotterdam, to the existing composition Oneirology. In this way, the result became the joint composition envisioned in this collaboration, and presented here as Oneirology 2, Dronescape 6.1.

In Oneirology 2 the Ney is transformed into a listener’s guide and companion – not unlike Dante’s Virgil or Gilgamesh’ Enkidu – on a voyage through the shifting sands of the world of dreams, creating a new synthesis of World Music and Contemporary Composing. Combining traditional sounds from the ancient bamboo flute called Ney with cutting edge modern digital technology, the music becomes an original world music composition.

Kudsi Erguner

Kudsi Erguner (Diyarbakır 1952), is one of the foremost Ney masters of our times, and particularly famed for his activities helping to introduce Ottoman and Sufi music to the world with internationally acclaimed projects and recordings. He lives and works in Paris as a musician, composer, musicologist, teacher, and author.

Erguner comes from a family of Turkish musicians. His contact with many famous musicians from the older generation, who continually passed through his parents’ house, and his involvement with various Sufi brotherhoods, whose music and teachings Erguner studied, left their decisive marks on him. He received his training directly from his father, Ulvi Erguner, who was the last great master of the Ney.

Kudsi Erguner has been designated as a UNESCO Artist for Peace in May 2016. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate by Bulent Ecevit University in Turkey in 2014 and by the University of Arts Audiovisuels Scopje in Makedonia in 2018

Parallel to his concerts and activities, he works as a professor at the Codarts University of the Arts Rotterdam since 2011 and animates a master class (Birun) at the Cini Foundation – Venice every year.

Tracks

1. Oneirology 2 – duration 54:00

Total duration: 54:00

See OIJ Records for more information and links to online streaming platforms.