İDOB Orchestra Opens the New Season with Beethoven's 9th Symphony

Speaking at the opening of the concert, conductor İbrahim Yazıcı stated that next year will be the 200th anniversary of Beethoven's death and said, "Unfortunately, the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth could not be celebrated incompletely due to the epidemic. We hope to be able to make up for this next year. We are already opening our new season with Beethoven's giant work, the 9th Symphony." he said.

Noting that the work was composed in 1822-1824, when Beethoven completely lost his hearing, Yazıcı also touched upon the discussions regarding the creativity of artificial intelligence in music in his speech.

Pointing out that there are different opinions about whether artificial intelligence can compose or not, Yazıcı evaluated this debate based on Beethoven's unfinished 10th Symphony.

Reminding that Beethoven's works were uploaded to the artificial intelligence to complete the 10th Symphony, Yazıcı said, "If Beethoven had left the 9th Symphony unfinished and the continuation of the work was created by uploading the first 8 symphonies to the artificial intelligence, would the artificial intelligence consider using a chorus in the final section? I think not. Because this is not just acting on existing data, but also revealing a new and original creativity." he said.

Yazıcı stated that the fourth part of the work tells the story of "the struggle of good against evil" and that percussion instruments come to the fore in this struggle.

Stating that this section is also known as the "Turkish March", Yazıcı explained that the coming of the Ottoman army, which was considered one of the strongest armies of the period, from afar was depicted, especially with the use of percussion instruments.

In the concert, the İDOB Orchestra was conducted by conductor İbrahim Yazıcı, and the İDOB Choir was conducted by conductor Paolo Villa. At the concert, soprano Dilruba Bilgi, mezzo-soprano Aylin Ateş, tenor Berk Dalkılıç and bass Burak Bilgili performed as soloists.