BRATTLEBORO — On Friday, Nov. 15, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., at Centre Congregational Church, 193 Main St., the Nagme Quartet will combine Turkish music and healing therapy in concert.
This concert is a benefit concert for the elderly and is open to the public by donation. The music is a contemporary expression of the beauty of modality from Turkey and from the various East Mediterranean traditions.
Dr. Ayla Clark is music psychotherapist, musician, educator, composer, singer, and founder of Southern Vermont Music Therapy. She is also a master of Turkish music, which she says is modal music based around tones or modes.
“Music doesn't have national borders,” she said in a news release. “It can't be so easily constrained. Music grows, it travels, and it resonates.”
Her specialty is the Kanun, an instrument she says is the piano of Turkish music. It has 75 strings and is in the same instrument family as a harp. Kanuns are played in the Middle East, North Africa, Southeastern regions of Europe, and Central Asia.
Clark will be joined by Volkan Efe, an oud and ney player who performs with Orkestra Marhaba and with other Turkish music ensembles in the Boston area. He is also a member of Cambridge Musiki Cemiyeti.
Also in the quartet is Ron Smith, a jazz musician and educator who is the director of jazz programs and bands at the Northfield Mount Hermon School. He'll be playing saxophone and piano.
Tom Robertson, a percussionist, folk dancer, and singer who performs with several bands, rounds out the quartet.