The Yeni Müzik Scene in Türkiye: How did the ‘New Music’ Discourse Change Local Contemporary Music Practice?

Abstract

Although the field of contemporary music composition in Turkey is mainly considered an institutionalization grounded on the nation-state ideology and the cultural policies of the early republic period, the political, economic, and cultural changes experienced in the last 30 years have led to the formation of alternative discourses and new institutionalizations in the field. Among these new formations, the 'yeni müzik' discourse - which can be considered as the local manifestation of the 'new music' discourse that originates in the 20th-century art music canon and the new composition scene shaped around it have marked significant differences in the local contemporary music practice. By providing a critical overview of the local history of the field, examining the early emergence of ‘yeni müzik’, and documenting the post-2000s development of this new compositional institutionalization, the present paper proposes ‘yeni müzik scene’ as an alternative formation and discusses how it differs from its predecessor 'Turkish Contemporary Music' in terms of institutional, social and musical practices. Our account of the topic – which has hardly been studied in the literature – benefits from both historiographical and fieldwork practices, hoping to provide a continuous socio-cultural narrative that situates the ‘yeni müzik scene’ within the local history of contemporary music.