The Composer Teoman Alpay, Who Built a Bridge between Eastern and Western Music, and His Song ‘Samanyolu’

Abstract

It is known that while it is possible to come across musicians who are interested in, compose and perform a single type of music throughout their lives, it is also possible to come across those whose production is quite extensive in terms of performance and composition. Teoman Alpay is among our composers who draw attention with his variety of production with his new and original works that emerge as we research. Teoman Alpay has gained an important place in Turkish music culture with many different and original aspects such as his life, works and the characteristics of his works. It has been stated that graduating from a conservatory that provides Western music education did not prevent him from producing works in the field of traditional Turkish music, and even that he served as a bridge between tonal and modal music. In addition to taking lessons from the Turkish Five, it is thought that working with traditional Turkish music composers such as Cevdet Çağla and Yesari Asım Arsoy shaped these productions. This study focuses on the background and composition process of Teoman Alpay's perhaps most well-known work in Turkish pop music. Content analysis technique was used in this qualitative and descriptive study. It is thought that the study contributes to the field and is original.