The headliner for this years edition of IstanbuLive 2012 was Selda Bağcan who turned in an impressive, impassioned set. She's been compared to Edith Piaf and Joan Baez, but I think Mercedes Sosa would be more on the mark.

It is hard for most of us to imagine the conditions under which Bağcan conducted her early career. A series of military coups in the early 70s took Turkey from a fairly open society in which the youth movement was musically active, to one in which repression and disappearances were rife. Bağcan was arrested and put on trial nine times and imprisoned three times, all for singing songs that sided with the poor and powerless, and for being associated with the Left.

But through it all, her celebrity grew, and as Mehmet Dede, one of the organizers of the festival, said to me "She is one of those artists that I listen to, that my daughter and my son will listen to, and my parents have listened to. She covers all those generations." And indeed, all those generations were represented in the audience, as well as a surprising cross section of New York ethnicities. I was very much taken with the power of her voice, although she professes to having less lung power than in her youth. And it's easy to hear why people relate to her music, as it is both melodic and highly emotional. The song that I've presented here is "Gömdüm Oğul Seni." It is a folk song (although Selda has penned many of her own hits) sung from the point of view of a mother who has seen her young son hanged. From the first notes, the audience roared its recognition, and throughout the concert Selda encouraged everyone to sing along with her.

Oğul (Gömdüm Oğul Seni)
My Son (I Buried You My Son)

I buried you my son
I turned the bloody tears into a fountain
I died on your coffin
Break those hands that have hit you my son
I did not get enough of your voice and your height
They put a thick rope around your thin neck
You fell like a rose to the bosom of the ground
Break those hands that have hung you my son
Will a son lost ever be replaced?
Ah my son, my wounds went deep
Look at the works of the wrongdoers
Break those hands that have burnt you my son

Selda's band is: Volkan Basaran - Guitar, Kemal Esen - Baglama, İzzet Tokay - Drums
Serdar Donduran - Keys, and ringers Ismail Lumenovski on clarinet and Tamer Pinarbasi on Kanun.

My thanks to Mevlüt Akaya for supplementary footage from on stage.

For more of Michal's world music videos visit inter-muse.com

This is just the first of what I plan to be several postings about the fabulous Førde Festival in Norway. The festival has already garnered itself an excellent reputation amongst world music aficionados, but should be on the agenda of anyone who enjoys travel and adventurous music. Part of that is due to the spectacular setting, and I advise those who make the trip to plan to explore the fjords all around the area. As press, we were treated to a breathtaking journey from Bergen via rail and boat up to Førde, that I will not soon forget. The other part of the allure is the excellent and canny musical choices of the producers. Torill Falleide and Hilde Bjørkum know what will please their audience, and it's an engaging mix of both unadorned ethnic and eclectic music that is consistently entertaining.

My video is from the opening night, and it’s quite literally a dazzler. The various musicians were asked to present their most tantalizing numbers, as the first program of the festival is intended as a menu, giving the audience a sampling of what is to come.

So the Musicians of the Nile presented a tanoura dance, complete with light show. What made it so amazing was that the light show was inside the costume of the dancer! Some folks questioned the "authenticity" of this but I think that if tiny lights had been around that could be sewn into the costume of the dancer back when it was first being performed hundreds of years ago, it would have been perfectly within cultural standards!

The tanoura dance will remind you of the whirling dervish dances of Turkey and they are indeed related, as the sufi tradition is present in Egypt through the Levant and Turkey, and in some forms, even into west Africa. (There are some claims that Sufism actually originates in ancient Egypt, but the majority of sources I have read posit that it was a reaction to, and outgrowth of, Islam.) The music and the whirling is meant to induce a trance, which in turn leads to a union with the divine. The skirts of the dancer are layered, and each color on the skirt represents a different Sufi order. These days this kind of presentation is very popular for entertainment at weddings and other kinds of celebrations. For my part, I was in heaven in a different way -- I'm a fool for colored lights (you should see me at a fireworks display) and I felt like a little kid transported with delight.

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For more of Michal's world music videos visit inter-muse.com