UNESCO Celebrates Itri

Ney via Wikipedia

UNESCO's Celebration of Anniversaries 2012 highlights special people, events and places in many member countries.

France marks 150 years of Claude Debussy
Jordan marks 200 years since the rediscovery of Petra
Spain marks 1,000 years since the founding of Granada
Here in the US, we celebrate 150 years of Edith Wharton

My favorite this year is from Georgia:

300 years of the epic poem: The Knight in the Panther’s Skin (1712) - the printed edition. (The unprinted version has been around since the twelfth century, in case you're curious.)

Sometimes multiple celebrations are in order.

This year Turkey remembers three prominent citizens: Yusuf Nabi, poet and philosopher (1641-1712), Kemal Ahmet Aru, architect and urban planner (1912-2005), and Buhurizade Mustafa Itri, musician (1640-1712).

"Buhurizade Itri (c. 1640-1712) musician, composer, calligrapher and poet, whose real name was Mustafa was a major exponent of Turkish classical music. He was a very prolific composer with more than a thousand works. However, only about 40 of these survived to this day. He lived through the times of five Ottoman Sultans. He became well known during the time of Mehmed IV. As with most composers of his day, Buhurizade Itri was also a famous poet and a calligrapher. He used poetic forms based on the classical Ottoman school of poetry (Dīvān), as well as those based on syllabic meters identified with folk music and poetry. Unfortunately most of his poetry has not survived to this day." via UNESCO

Itri's Neva Kâr is perhaps the most well known. The main instruments are the reed flute, called a ney, and the Saz string instument. The piece is about eleven minutes long, and evokes whirling dervishes because Itri was a Sufi and a poet.

Enjoy!