Tag: Can Bonomo

  • Introducing Turkey’s Eurovision Breakout

    Introducing Turkey’s Eurovision Breakout

    Ah, to be 25, dressed like a Left Bank buccaneer and belting out irresistible Anatolian pop before a televised audience of 125 million kitsch-craving European fans. Such was Can Bonomo’s perch at the Eurovision Song Contest last month. The dashing young Turk, from a Sephardic Jewish family in Izmir, represented Turkey in Eurovision. Though he did not win — the prize went to Swedish-Moroccan singer Loreen — Bonomo was one of the more compelling singers to take the enormous and purpose-built stage in Baku, Azerbaijan. His song “Love Me Back” was performed as a jaunty set piece, variously channeling Pirates of the Caribbean (the ride), Show Boat and Ali Baba. A spicy summer mix, you might say. Bonomo stopped whirling for a moment to talk to us about “Istanbul music” and more.

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    What was your craziest Eurovision experience?

    There’s not much that is not crazy when it comes to Eurovision. It’s very hyped all over Europe. I’ve had a lot of crazy experiences, from getting chased by cops for making music on European streets to broadcasting my birthday via press conference to all over the world.

    Is it correct that you wrote the words and music to “Love Me Back”? Did you translate the lyrics from Turkish, or was the song originally written in English?

    It was written completely from scratch in English. Eurovision is an international contest, so if the lyrics were in Turkish only the Turkish people would have understood it. This way it reached a wider audience. However the song would have also sounded quite good if it was in Turkish, since the Turkish language is very melodic and very suitable for songs.

    Do American pop artists influence your music or style?

    I don’t want to sound condescending, but as a personal preference I don’t listen to pop that much. I’ve heard Madonna is coming to Turkey for a show sometime soon; I don’t think I’ll be going. On the other hand I’m really excited for Red Hot Chili Peppers concert. I’ve always been a rock ‘n’ roll type of guy. Even when I was a kid I grew up with the Kinks, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. My style is actually more influenced by poets than musicians. I’m a great admirer of American poetry and literature. I love Bukowski. I even have a tattoo from one of Gwendolyn Brooks’s poems.

    In both your Eurovision performance and on your Web site, you can be seen wearing some very interesting styles. Is it a Turkish designer who makes the clothes you wear for shows?

    The very first performance I did, I was wearing my own clothes straight from my closet. I only work with designers for official events like the Eurovision or song videos. I don’t have a designated designer. For Eurovision, though, Giray Sepin did the costumes for the dancers and Hatice Gokce did mine. My style is not that specific to a region or anything like that, but it does have slight ethnic touches.

    After Eurovision, what comes next? Can we expect more songs in English? Is performing in the United States something you would like to do in the future?

    I would absolutely be delighted to come to the U.S. to perform. But I want my lyrics to have a powerful emotional impact, and I don’t think I’m ready to deliver that punch in English yet. I had to postpone the recording of my second album because of Eurovision. Better late than never, and we are finally starting on that. I will also be publishing a poetry book in a few months. I’ve been getting a lot of praise from famous writers and poets here in Turkey. I’m super-thrilled about that.

    I watched Eurovision with a group of Israelis who said some of your music reminded them of klezmer. Was klezmer an influence on you musically growing up in Izmir?

    Turkish music shares a lot of instruments with klezmer music. However, I prefer to call the music I make “Istanbul” music. It’s a combination of sounds, instruments, bazaar salesmen yells, the whole nine yards. I want people to feel the chaotic energy of Istanbul in my albums.

    This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

    Correction: June 11, 2012

    In an earlier version of the post, the singer’s name was misspelled in the headline. His name is Can Bonomo, not Cam Bonomo.

    via Introducing Turkey’s Eurovision Breakout – NYTimes.com.

  • Istanbul – Turkey’s Jewish Narrative Tolerance and Dark Side

    Istanbul – As Turkey welcomes Syrians fleeing violence, the anniversary Friday of the deaths of more than 750 Jewish refugees who were denied shelter by Turkey in World War II was a reminder of perennial tension between pragmatic and humanitarian impulses.

    A honor guard soldier stands during a ceremony at a Jewish cemetery in Bucharest, Romania, Friday, Feb. 24, 2012, next to a monument bearing the names of Jews killed 70 years ago when the SS Struma, the ship they were on as refugees on the way to Palestine, was sunk by a Soviet torpedo in the Black Sea leading to the death of all but one of the 779 people on board.At a time when Turkey welcomes Syrians fleeing violence, the anniversary Friday of the deaths of more than 750 Jewish refugees whose boat was abandoned by Turkish officials in World War II was a reminder of the tension between pragmatic and humanitarian impulses.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

    The SS Struma, whose passengers fled Romania and docked in Istanbul, was denied entry to Palestinian territory by colonial power Britain. On Feb. 23, 1942, Turkey towed the vessel to the Black Sea and set it adrift. A Soviet torpedo sank it the next morning, and only one person survived.

    The episode is a stain on an upbeat narrative of the Jewish experience in the mostly Muslim country, even if Jews are treated with far more tolerance than elsewhere in the region. Turkey dwells on the legacy of Ottoman rulers who welcomed Jews fleeing Christian persecution in Spain in the 15th century.

    Tension over the past shadows Turkey as it seeks to lead in the region, advocating democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. Turkey, which had sought closer ties with Syria’s authoritarian regime, now demands that its president stop a bloody crackdown on opponents and quit, and it shelters some 10,000 refugees from Syria.

    Signs of Turkish inclusiveness are many. Singer Can Bonomo, of Sephardic Jewish descent, will represent Turkey at the Eurovision song contest in Azerbaijan this year. Last month, Turkey showed a French film about the Nazi genocide, the first time it was aired on public television in a mostly Muslim nation.

    Huseyin Avni Mutlu, Istanbul’s governor, attended a ceremony to commemorate Holocaust victims.

    “We have strived to serve the world as a center of tolerance,” read his prepared remarks. “Never was any nationality, religion or belief group oppressed in these lands. On the contrary, they were treated as equals, with respect, and their cultural heritages were conserved.”

    But the way Turkey — neutral in World War II — handled the Struma undercuts claims of favorable treatment that Jews and other minorities purportedly received in that era. Even today, deficits in equal rights and religious freedoms mar democratic advances in Turkey.

    “This is a tragedy which is treated as something that has nothing to do with Turkey,” said author Rifat Bali, who has written about non-Muslim minorities in Turkey. He said blame is assigned to Britain or the Soviet Union, with some justification, but described the refugee deaths as a “black spot” on Turkey’s “rosy rhetoric” about benevolent policies.

    A rare commemoration was held at Sarayburnu, a promontory near the Golden Horn inlet in Istanbul. Organizer Cem Murat Sofuoglu said the Turkish establishment was not interested.

    “They don’t want to shake the cage,” said Sofuoglu, a lawyer who wants Turkey and Britain to apologize.

    Turkey’s Jewish community of just over 20,000 has traditionally kept a low profile to avoid controversy or worse, especially at a time when political ties between Turkey and Israel, a former ally, are frozen. The low point came in 2010 when nine people died during an Israeli raid on a Turkish ship intending to deliver aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

    In 2003, two Istanbul synagogues were targeted in deadly bombings by militants tied to al-Qaida, and Turkey cracked down on radical Islamists.

    Many Turkish Jews had to speak Turkish and drop Ladino, a language that mixes Hebrew and Spanish and is dying out, in the early years of the modern republic. During World War II, Jews, as well as ethnic Armenians and Greeks, were subject to an arbitrary lump-sum tax, and mobs attacked non-Muslim properties in Istanbul in 1955.

    Anti-Semitism has risen in Turkey’s ultraconservative media over the past five years, said Murat Onur, an Istanbul-based commentator who has studied the issue. Activists want the government to incorporate “hate speech” legislation in plans for a new constitution.

    Baki Tezcan, an associate professor of history and religious studies at the University of California, Davis, said the only place to buy a menorah in Istanbul is at the offices of Shalom, a Jewish newspaper. In December, he went there to get one because his father-in-law is Jewish, saw no sign outside, and encountered a strict screening procedure.

    “This experience made me realize how difficult it must be to live as a Jew in Turkey, feeling so threatened that they have to hide their community newspaper’s offices and apply such high security measures,” he wrote in an email.

    After the Ottoman Empire collapsed and foreign powers carved up its spoils, Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, hauled Turkey onto a secular path, though religious belief remained entrenched. Today, the government is run by pious Muslims who describe themselves as conservative democrats.

    One constant over the decades is the fact that Turkish identity cards state the religion of their carriers.

    The majority Sunni Muslims stand “at the center of the circle” of Turkish citizenship, according to Tezcan.
    “This might go back to the original meaning of the word ‘millet,’ which is used to refer to ‘nation’ today,” he wrote. “It actually meant a ‘religious community.’ So we are dealing with the repercussions of late Ottoman history, and the complex dynamics of growing local nationalisms, on the one hand, and European imperialism, on the other.”

    Eyal Peretz is the Israel-born chairman of Arkadas, a community of ethnic Turkish Jews in Israel. He said the Ottoman welcome to Jews was something “we cannot forget” and an “exceptional story” in a dire catalogue of persecution over the centuries.

    However, he criticized Turkey for downgrading relations with Israel, alleging it seeks to curry favor with Muslims worldwide. Turkey is incensed over the treatment of the Palestinians by Israel, which has refused Turkish demands for an apology and compensation in the 2010 raid.

    Some historians speculate the Soviets mistook the Struma for a troop ship from Romania, a Nazi ally, and thought they were firing on an enemy. A book, “Death on the Black Sea,” cites Refik Saydam, Turkey’s prime minister at the time, as saying Turkey was not responsible.

    “Turkey cannot serve as a homeland for people not welcomed by others,” Saydam said. “That’s the way we choose. This is the reason we could not keep them in Istanbul. It is unfortunate that they were victims of an accident.”

    Deborah Dwork, director of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University in the United States, said studying the past helped to provide a compass for future conduct. She said Turkey’s wartime refugee policy was similar to that of other nations in that it welcomed only those Jews likely to make financial or cultural contributions. German Jews had a prominent role in archaeological excavations in Turkey in the 1930s.

    “They were going to cherrypick precisely those Jews who would enrich Turkey one way or another,” Dwork said. She noted that Turkish authorities waited 24 hours before sending lifeboats to the area where the Struma was struck.

    “As far as I’m concerned, that is both compliance and complicity with mass murder,” she said.

  • Can Bonomo looks forward to see Baku’s rich culture

    Can Bonomo looks forward to see Baku’s rich culture

    can bonomoTurkish participant at “Eurovision-2012” song contest Can Bonomo hopes that this contest will give him a lot of friends and experience. “I have never been to Baku yet. That’s why I am doubly excited. I’m looking forward to see its rich culture and meet some new friend,” he said.

    Semifinal rounds of the contest will be held in Baku on May 22 and May 24, Final will be held on May 26.
    TRT’s decision was a surprise for me, too. Maybe they wanted something different than Turkish POP music this year, something alternative. However, the list of Turkey’s representatives included Hande Yener, Atiye, Murat Boz.

    It’s too soon to think about choreography or the stage performance for now. We are still focusing on the song that we are going to present. We all have ideas in our minds but it will be fully shaped after the song is finished, he said.
    “Our song will have our ethnic instruments, a healthy dosage of POP and a good beat to make people dance,” he said.

    The honor and pride of being selected to represent my country is good enough.

    “I trust my work,” he said. “I don’t think that anything will go wrong.”
    Can Bonomo is Turkish jazz singer of Jewish origin. He was born in Izmir in 1987. He began singing from 8 years old. At the age of 17 he moved to Istanbul. His first performances were heard on the radio during his college career. Later, he began appearing on television.

     

     

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