The Heybeliada (Halki) International Sound Centre.

After-life abodes vary according to many traditions. The most mythical and poetic among them seem to be those “Islands of the Blessed", refuge for bards and heroes, havens of wisdom, peace and repose. Ancient bardic epics of East and West refer to a silver spiralling citadel whirling beyond the North Star or Polaris, a fixed star around which, the world, as we perceive it, revolves. Heroes in “those days of old” counted amongst those warriors whose skills were not at the service of unbridled conquest but rather at the calling of defending a legitimate order or legacy sanctioned from above. Bards were the keepers of an oral tradition with which they wove the natural order of Nature in its ascending vortex into the bodies, hearts and minds of people. Their other mantle was to separate opposing armies on a battlefield through verse, dance and music.

Heybeliada (Halki) reflects in the material plane the civilising energies of those mythical islands inasmuch as it became through the ages a place of learning and a haven for poets, anchorites, teachers and mystics. It is no coincidence that in the 19th century, at the apogee of the Romaioi-Greek economic recovery, three keystone institutions were founded there, which helped the Ottoman Empire in its overture to Europe and to the Christian world. The Naval Academy of the Ottoman Empire was initially housed in the domain of a renowned Greek family. The first business and foreign language school to be established in the Empire was erected on the ‘handle’, so to speak, which joins the head and main body of the island. To this day the edifice houses the language school of the Turkish Navy. The monastery of the Holy Trinity, which crowned the hilltop ‘head’ of the island since the early years of Byzantium, was transformed into a Theological seminary. Since time immemorial this same hilltop, reached through a spiralling path, has been a place of worship, overlooking as it does, the Bosphorus straits in the misty distance over the Sea of Marmara. In fact, the entrance to the ancient Byzantine monastery was said to have been paved with a mosaic representing a labyrinth through which the pilgrim had to wind through before penetrating through the doors of the monastery.

Halki is derived from ‘chalkos’ or ‘chalkitis’, which means copper in Greek. The island has been inhabited since the copper and early bronze age. There are signs of extensive diggings around Cham Liman (Bay of Pines) where malachite ore was extracted. Green copper-rich malachite stones can still be found in the sea and scattered along the shores of the bay. Aristotle’s disciple Theophrastus visited the mines, which were still functioning in his time. He mentions in his “Peri Lithon” (About Stones) both Cyprus and the island off Chalkidoni or Chalkitis in the Sea of Marmara as being the main producers of Malachite. In ancient Egypt Malachite was mined in the Sinai Peninsula and was considered sacred to the goddess Hathor. One of Hathor’s avatars was Ma’at, goddess of Truth and Order, Patron of the Sciences, Learning and the Arts. In the Hellenistic world it became sacred to Aphrodite. In Mediaeval Byzantium metallurgists used the symbol for Venus (♀) as the hieroglyph to symbolise copper. Copper, let it be said, is a beautiful metal, soft and malleable, a good conductor; it helps transfer all the energy into our homes and connects us with the speed of light to miraculous distances. It has sustained generations of Gypsies and other nomads who fashioned our kitchenware. It is said that the great friend of God, Mevlana Cellaledin Rumi began to whirl and dance at the rhythmic sound of copper being beaten into shape as he was walking by the stalls of tinkers in the bazaar.

Follow The Bagpipes / The Copper and Tin road – The Music Road

Halki appears as an insular node along the metallurgical road of the copper and early bronze age. Tin and silver from the Black Sea coast was carried to Mariandyne (renamed Irakleio in the iron age, and now Eregli ) in Bythinia, copper was extracted from Halki and shipped to the other Mariandyne (Irakleio – Trakya Eregli) in Thrace. Gold sifted in Thrace, was added to these metals, which then made their way to Celtic Europe, Ireland, Wales and Caledonia, great sources of tin used in the amalgam with copper to produce bronze and orichalcus. From the Black Sea to Thrace and all the way to Ireland and Scotland the dominant musical instrument seems to have been the bagpipe. An attentive and discerning ear can pick familiar sounds, rhythms and melodies all along these routes. The tunings and harmonics in fourths of the present day Pontiac kemençe or lyra (kemenche – short-necked, long and narrow-bodied lute played with a bow) show an affinity to the bagpipe.

As late as the early 20th century, on the 1st. of May, the mothers of the Greek community used to gather in the vale below the little promontory capped by a wind- mill in the northernmost part of the island, to feed their children with milk and red wine. This custom can be traced all the way back to the matriarchal early copper age. Is it not a wonder that in Turkey traditions persist that can find their roots archaic time – “In that Illustrious Time of Old” – “In Illo Tempore” as Mircea Eliade preferred to call it?

The music route was followed by the silk route, which in turn was replaced by the pipeline route. Now, we all know that petrol-oil is a source of war, and after war follows famine. Nations are in competition, the fires of culture and religious wars are fanned yet there exists that perennial wisdom, that silent sound which permeates everything, this Logos which binds and unites all that exists, this wondrous play of numbers, which is music, to which the ancients looked up in praise and in awe before its Wisdom.


The International Heybeli Sound Centre.

An echo of the heavenly origin of music persists through the speculations of all the ancient and mediaeval philosophers and musical theorists from Pythagoras to Safi Al Din. This harmony of the spheres has enthralled some of the greatest mystics and dervishes of Islam as well as Christian hymnologists and musical theorists. What then is this marvel of the natural order that abolishes all contradictions and unites men of wisdom of diverse faiths and seemingly opposed cultures? Is it not the recollection and contemplation of the wisdom with which number and sound produce without repetition these myriad forms of life while using the least possible energy and matter. To quote Plato himself: “That which is divine and breads amazement to those who fix their gaze on it and consider how universal nature moulds form and type by the constant revolution of potency and its converse about the double in the various progressions” (Plato – Epinomis 990e).
The International Heybeli Sound Centre through the study of the Eastern maqam system of music will attempt to approach the wisdom of the ‘ancients’ in an attempt to create bridges between seemingly opposing cultures.

Let us recall. Throughout pre-historical to historical times the East has always been a source of culture, wisdom, knowledge and refinement in arts and techniques – witness the fact that as early as the 19th. Century, the cloth-weaving techniques the British invaders learned in India and China brought about the industrial revolution in England. A great deal of commerce between East and West flowed through the Bosphorus straits and the Balkans.
The present energy routes are the most threatening culturally and uninspiring to say the least. The previous routes of metals and silk offered adjoining populations enhancement and refinement of both their material and spiritual world, for man’s workmanship was closely tied to the notion of the sacrality of matter. With his labour man fulfilled Nature's procreative energy of embellishing the material universe.
The new world order thrives precisely on the de-sacralisation, exploitation and abuse of the material universe.

The ambition of our music centre on the island of Heybeli, sitting on a node, a maqam, of the ancient trade and culture routes, would be to contribute in re-establishing cultural ties amongst the people bordering these routes and to remind them that music unites people in celebrating the majesty of all creation.

Next steps

The project has successfully passed the evaluation procedure (see previous entry). Procedures for finalizing the administrative details to launch the project are underway.

Planning of the Soundscape, Studios and Archives activities are also making progress. Ideas for concrete topics and archives have been discussed, and some of them agreed upon, others seem promising but need further discussion. Details to be published on the website soon. So much can be said now, that we are speaking with several institutions and individuals for collaboration and that specific programs for further funding proposals have been identified.

Project Passes Evaluation

Today, Friday, the project passed the evaluation committee at YDAS. This is an official "go".

από το σταύρο

ηλιοστάσιο

fire kept burning through the longest night of the year...

απρόβλεπτη μέρα σήμερα με την αλεξάνδρα και το νικηφόρο στην καρδιά της "χριστουγεννιάτικης" αθήνας, κόσμος,ταλαιπωρία, ματαιότητα, σκληρότητα, απουσία,μα που και που κάποιο αδέσποτο σκυλί ευτυχισμένο ανάμεσα στον κόσμο, κάποιοι μετανάστες με πλατύ χαμόγελο... κι εκείνη η ανάπαυση στο γραφείο του σταύρου για τις τελευταίες διορθώσεις πριν την:

• (παρασκευή 21/12/2007): ΚΑΤΑΘΕΣΗ στην ΥΔΑΣ του τελικότατου προϋπολογισμού που σίγουρα θα τροποποιηθεί αργότερα λόγω και μόνο της ισοτιμίας ευρώ/ytl μα ο κόσμος έτσι κι αλλοιώς τόσο ρευστός...

καθώς σήμερα η μέρα μνήμης του Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī στον οποίο ήταν αφιερωμένο (από την UNESCO) το έτος 2007 που φεύγει γρήγορα και που μας χάρισε τόση πρόοδο για το σχολείο μουσικής που στήνουμε και που τόσο θα αγαλλίαζε (και αγαλλιά!) τον αγαπημένο μυστικό Ρουμί
παραθέτω σε ότι γλώσσα βρήκα:

Shams-e-Tabrīzī (Persian: شمس تبریزی, d. 1248) was an Iranian Sufi mystic born in the city of Tabriz in Iranian Azerbaijan. He is responsible for initiating Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, usually known as Rumi in the West, into Islamic mysticism, and is immortalized by Rumi's poetry collection Diwan-e Shams-e Tabriz-i ("The Works of Shams of Tabriz"). Shams lived together with Rumi in Konya, in present-day Turkey, for several years, and is also known to have travelled to Damascus in present-day Syria.

After several years with Rumi, Shams vanished from the pages of history quite suddenly. It is not known what became of him after his departure from Rumi, and there are several locations that lay claim to his gravesite; one is in a remote region of the Karakorams in Northern Pakistan at a place called Ziarat not far from the village of Shimshall, and another is in the same town that Rumi is buried in: Konya, Turkey. Rumi's love for Shams, and his bereavement at his death, found expression in an outpouring of music, dance, and lyric poems. Rumi himself left Konya and went out searching for Shams, journeying as far as Damascus before realizing that Shams and himself were, in fact, "one and the same" [1]

As the years passed, Rumi attributed more and more of his own poetry to Shams as a sign of love for his departed friend and master. Indeed, it quickly becomes clear in reading Rumi that Shams was elevated to a symbol of God's love for mankind, and that Shams was a sun ("Shams" is Arabic for "sun") shining the Light of God on Rumi.

Quelques vers de Rumi


Oiseau du jardin céleste
Je suis un oiseau du jardin céleste,
Je ne suis pas d’ici, de ce monde terrestre
On m’a fait une cage de ce corps mortel
Pour que dans la cage quelques jours je reste 1

Citations

« La vérité est un miroir tombé de la main de Dieu et qui s'est brisé. Chacun en ramasse un fragment et dit que toute la vérité s'y trouve » 2
« Il est un soleil caché dans un atome : soudain, cet atome ouvre la bouche. Les cieux et la terre s'effritent en poussière devant ce soleil lorsqu'il surgit de l'embuscade »
« Ta tâche n'est pas de chercher l'amour, mais simplement de chercher et trouver tous les obstacles que tu as construits contre l'amour »
« J'étais neige, tu me fondis. La terre me but; brume d'esprit, je remonte vers le soleil... »
« Quand il s'en va vers l'océan à la recherche de la perle, il est lui-même perle, et même une perle unique. »
« Ce qui est vivant, fais-le mourir : c’est ton corps.
Ce qui est mort, vivifie-le : c’est ton cœur.
Ce qui est présent, cache-le : c’est le monde d’ici-bas.
Ce qui est absent, fais-le venir : c’est le monde de la vie future.
Ce qui existe : anéantis-le : c’est la passion.
Ce qui n’existe pas, produis-le : c’est l’intention. »3

The outcome of my life is no more than these three lines: I was a raw material; I was cooked and became mature; I was burned in love.

«Έλα έλα όποιος κι αν είσαι, περιπλανώμενος, ειδωλολάτρης, πυρολάτρης, Έλα ακόμη κι αν έσπασες χιλιάδες φορές τους όρκους σου, Έλα και πάλι έλα, τo δικό μας καραβάνι δεν είναι καραβάνι της απόγνωσης»

ημερολόγιο

τελικά η ιδέα του γιάννη γι' αυτό το ιστολόγιο σα σελίδες ημερολογίου της περιπέτειάς μας με το πρόγραμμα θ' αποδειχθεί εξαιρετική- σήμερα το καταλάβαμε με την αλεξάνδρα εδώ στη ραφήνα οπότε και κάνω την αρχή απόψε σημειώνοντας:

• σάββατο 8/12/2007 : η πρώτη γενική συνέλευσή μας με κύριο θέμα την τροποποίηση του καταστατικού της εταιρείας μας

• δευτέρα 10/12/2007: κατάθεση στην ΥΔΑΣ προσφοράς από το κατάστημα elina (γιάννης παπανάνος), που επιμελήθηκε ο δικός μας γιάννης, για τα μηχανήματα εξοπλισμού του στούντιο ηχογράφησης