Musician Tries to Preserve Heritage
By Ashley Carter, Staff Writer
The Purdue Exponent, Tuesday, November 6, 2001
In the midst of modern society, one man is trying to preserve his disappearing traditional heritage. Birol Topaloglu will perform Friday in the first U.S. tour of the world's only traditional Laz music group.
The Laz people live in the mountainous regions of Turkey and Georgia along the Black Sea. They trace their ancestry back to the Colchis, owners of the Golden Fleece and hosts of Jason and the Argonauts.
Baris Yagci, a graduate student from Turkey studying the Laz people, said their love of music runs deep, to the extent that everyday communication can be carried out in song. However their music, as well as their culture, is being lost.
"Modern society doesn't provide opportunities to pass on folk culture," said Edie Cassell, a graduate student and a member of the Turkish Student Association.
Although most of the 250,000 Laz people still speak their native language, Lazuri, most have forgotten the ancestral melodies and songs that Topaloglu is trying to preserve.
"He tries to protect and save the public knowledge," said Yagci. "It's not written down, but he's trying to document it, and I think it's an important effort."
Topaloglu was born into a Laz family and as a child, he sang in Turkish and Lazuri, showing great promise as a musician.
As an adult, with a degree in electronic engineering, he gave up his career to devote his life to music.
Topaloglu began by collecting lullabies and ballads sang by his mother. He studied Laz music and visited with local elders, persuading them to share their music and inspiration.
His first album, "Heyamo," was the first recording ever sung entirely in Laz and based on traditional music, with the song titles in Lazuri and Turkish. It became wildly popular in Turkey and spread across Europe.
"Collecting songs, making a CD, trying to distribute it and performing it live brings modern society and traditional culture together," said Cassell.
Part of this traditional heritage includes traditional Laz instruments.
Some instruments, such as the kavali, a thin metal cylinder that Laz seamen would extract from the frame of their ship and play like a flute, are already lost.
Others, such as the kemenche, a string instrument similar to a violin; a philili, a wind instrument; and tulum, an instrument similar to a bagpipe, are slowly being forgotten.
Topaloglu is trying to revive these instruments as well as helping to develop a percussion instrument called a guni, inspired by the wood used to build beehives.
Touring Europe since 1999, his group has finally reached the United States and will play at 7 p.m. Friday in the Great Hall of the Wesley Foundation.
"It's giving the people in Lafayette the opportunity to be exposed to something that's so different, so hard to find, and live that makes it special," said Cassell.
