Türkiye to open digital archive of centuries-old music

Türkiye is assembling a digital archive of musical works spanning centuries, including historical scores and performance recordings, that will be made freely available to the public in 2027. The project, run by the Culture and Tourism Ministry's General Directorate of Fine Arts, will bring together scores from the Seljuk and Ottoman periods along with religious hymns, gazels, concert recordings and stage performances. Organizers say the archive is meant to give musicians, researchers and the broader public a single online destination for exploring Türkiye's musical heritage.

A separate push to record performances

A second project is under way to digitally capture artistic productions by the directorate's ensembles. Omer Faruk Belviranli, director general of Fine Arts, told Anadolu that the directorate oversees 29 orchestras, choirs and musical ensembles, including six state symphony orchestras and the State Polyphonic Choir, with others focused on traditional Turkish music, folk music, folk dances and music from different regions. "Works we produce must definitely be recorded. If it is visual, there must be a video recording; if it is audio, they must definitely be recorded through the YouTube channel," Belviranli said. He noted that 15 of the directorate's 29 units have professional recording studios and that an existing performance archive will be moved onto an online platform. "We currently have an archive. All that remains is to bring this archive to life and transfer it to the YouTube channel, or whichever channel we will publish it on, in accordance with our minister's instructions," he said.

Hamparsum notation and Ottoman scores

The digital collection will also feature historical musical notation reflecting centuries of Turkish musical tradition. "Turkish music is a sea," Belviranli said. "We have in our possession, in the form of an archive, very special scores inherited from the 700-800-year-old Seljuk and Ottoman tradition to the present day, Hamparsum notation, scores written in Ottoman Turkish and many more." Hamparsum notation is a historical system developed during the Ottoman period to record Turkish music. "We will definitely transfer all of these to the archive and make them available to those interested," he said. "We will create a digital sea that our listeners can access free of charge, where everyone interested can see everything with one click and gain access to the details of the archive." Belviranli said an exact figure for the number of works could not yet be given, but the archive would cover the programs of the directorate's 29 units and eventually include tens of thousands of pieces.

Live concerts still irreplaceable

Belviranli said the recordings would let people study individual pieces and performances, while stressing that digital access would not replace the experience of attending a live concert. "Music lovers will be able to listen to the concerts digitally through our archive, but being at concerts is like watching the same match. Watching it on television and going to the stadium to watch it are very different," he said. "Being able to feel that atmosphere, that spirit, is very important." The directorate also plans to keep sending musical ensembles abroad, and Belviranli said it had received requests from at least 42 countries for performances marking Oct. 29, Türkiye's Republic Day. He said foreign audiences accounted for nearly 80% of spectators at some overseas programs, particularly those featuring traditional music, whirling dervish performances, Turkish World music and folk dances. "We are striving to be a bridge carrying the past into the future," Belviranli said.