PORT ANGELES — Local residents will have a rare opportunity to hear Turkish world music legend Omar Faruk Tekbilek give a workshop and concert in the Little Theater at Peninsula College, 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd., on Tuesday.
Admission is free to the 12:30 p.m. event hosted by the college’s music appreciation class and co-sponsored by the Centrum foundation of Port Townsend and the Peninsula College Cultural Arts Committee.
Tekbilek’s appearance is part of Caravanserai, a cultural exchange program to showcase the diversity of contemporary Islamic societies.
The program, produced by Arts Midwest (www.ArtsMidwest.org), is funded by the Building Bridges program of the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art.
Born in 1951 in the city of Adana, Turkey, Tekbilek was a child prodigy who was trained on several instruments: the ney, a bamboo flute; the zurna, a double-reed oboe-like instrument; the baglama, a long-necked lute; and the oud, or classic lute.
By the age of 12, he was performing professionally at local venues.
Tekbilek has called his approach to music “cosmic,” both rooted in tradition and colored by contemporary sounds.
For more information, visit www.pencol.edu.
