Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

The Neys Have It

When Peter Gabriel won a Grammy for mixing Middle Eastern music samples into the 1988 soundtrack of The Last Temptation of Christ, Americans and Europeans discovered a hunger for similar sounds. That same year, Turkish composer and virtuosic multi-instrumentalist Omar Faruk Tekbilek settled the score of the PBS Ottoman-Empire biopic Suleyman the Magnificent. Since that recording debut, Tekbilek has become a world performer par excellence. The ambassador of Middle Eastern music was a prodigy on the Turkish ney, an end-blown bamboo flute, but he also sings and performs on the zurna and the baglama — oboe- and lute-like instruments, respectively. His ensemble blends Middle Eastern instruments with western-style guitar, keyboards and all manner of percussion. Lane Series concertgoers can catch Sufi rhythms and Turkish folk melodies after a preprogram intro.