Nihavend (Whirling Dervishes)

Religion

Nihavend is the only Turkish Art Music Turkish group in London. Led by Cahit Baylav on violin, the group is twelve-strong, including Mehmet Can on the qanun (zither), Emre Yuksel on oud (lute), Munise Unver on ney (reed flute), Aysh Akgul on bendir (frame drum), and singers Ayse Bircan, Filiz Capar, Nergiz Martin, Sule Cinemre, Sevim Gorgu, Yasin Onemli, Songul Demiralp and Asuman Sumer who recently joined after a 20-year career in the State Turkish Music Ensemble in Istanbul.

Turkish Art Music has developed around the Ottoman Court in Istanbul over many centuries. It reflects the cosmopolitan nature of the Ottoman Empire. As Cahit Baylav points out, "Art Music unifies people of different origin, both players and composers. For example there are Greek, Armenian and Jewish composers as well as Turkish bringing in their own influences- all melting and blending in what we now term as Turkish art Music." And whilst Art Music shares many features of both Turkish Folk and Classical music, the style and instrumentation is very different, making Nihavend a very special experience for all its members. "In this group we play unadulterated traditional music, and we try to stick to it. It has become the main characteristic of the group. In a world where the impacts of globalisation threaten local cultures and traditions, the members of the group feel a special responsibility to promote this particular genre in its finest, authentic form." The group perform all over London, but always pick venues and concerts that allow them to create the kind of environment Art Music is designed for. "We're quite choosy!" Baylav says, "we prefer to play just the acoustic sound, and we wait for the right booking in an appropriate setting. We do it really for the beauty of the music."

Cahit Baylav remembers getting a bad mark in music at school in Turkey when he was 11. He was so upset that he asked his cousin to teach him the violin - and has never looked back.

Born in the mountainous region of Ermenek in 1946, Cahit left his home town in his teens to attend a boarding school, where the music teacher encouraged him to play both western and classical Turkish music. But when he went to university in Ankara, it was to study physics. "I didn't think of music as a career," he explains. After a spell in Britain in the 1970s as a postgraduate student, he returned to Istanbul to became a left-wing trade union leader. But his musical interests continued to grow and he would play folk music or Turkish dance tunes at union functions and at parties. "It was a turbulent time but music was my source of sanity in those mad years," he recalls. When his trade union was banned following a military coup in 1980, he was smuggled out of the country and arrived in Britain in 1982 as a refugee.

When he was given an income support grant of £100, he promptly spent £65 of it on a violin. "The others thought I was eccentric. But I told them I needed music for my sanity," he says. While working in the race relations department and then in Hackney college, he studied violin. He then did a music degree course at Goldsmith's College and began playing violin in a local orchestra where the repertoire was western classical. At a similar time he began coaching Turkish folk groups and teaching music in mother tongue schools in the Turkish community. In 2000, he initiated the formation of Turkisk folk group Anatolia and classical Turkish group Nihavend. He also performs with Dunav, who play music from across the Balkans.