A trio of Turkish musicians bringing traditional Turkish music to an international stage.
Dü-Şems Ensemble was founded in 2010 by Osman Kırklıkçı, Emre Erdal and Osman Öksüzoğlu in Istanbul. The ensemble was created with the intention of bringing traditional Turkish music to an international audience and of collaborating with traditional musicians from other countries such as Greece, Iran, Syria, and the Balkans. The name of the ensemble comes from the Turkish Islamic philosopher Alpharabius (870-950) who is known as “Muallim-i Evvel” (The first teacher) and who wrote the composition “Dü-Şems” /Du-Shams/ (Double Sun).
Dü-Şems Ensemble has been giving concerts and producing recordings to bring the riches of Ottomon Turkish music and the music from nearby regions to the world. Their repertoire consists of compositions that were written between the 10th century and 21st century and that have been passed down through written and oral traditions. In interpreting these compositions, Dü-Şems Ensemble carefully keeps to their original forms and uses authentic period instruments, recreating their historical sound as closely as possible.
One of the main of aims of Dü-Şems Ensemble is to highlight the way Turkish music has always interacted with musics from countries such as Greece, Iran, the Balkans and Syria by performing correlating pieces with musicians from these countries.
The repertoire of the ensemble is composed of various pieces from these different geographical regions and languages. In this way, Dü-Şems Ensemble conveys a unity of different languages and different identities through the common language of music.