Othello in the Seraglio: The Tragedy of Sümbül the Black Eunuch

Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol is a Grammy-nominated composer. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in April 2016, premiering his commissioned piece Harabat/The Intoxicated. Other recent works have been heard at Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall, Jordan Hall and on A Far Cry string orchestra’s recording Dreams and Prayers. He hails from Cyprus and Turkey, and is a jazz pianist, a multi-instrumentalist, a singer, and an ethnomusicologist, as well as a full-time faculty member at New England Conservatory. Sanlıkol was a recipient of The Aaron Copland Fund for Music Performance Program Grant in 2016 with his unique jazz orchestra/combo Whatsnext?. The Boston Globe noted that Sanlıkol’s “music is colorful, fanciful, full of rhythmic life, and full of feeling. The multiculturalism is not touristy, but rather sophisticated, informed, internalized; Sanlıkol is a citizen of the world.”

A musical polymath, Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol has composed for, performed and toured with international stars and ensembles such as Dave Liebman, Bob Brookmeyer, Billy Cobham, Gil Goldstein, Anat Cohen, Esperanza Spalding, Antonio Sanchez, Tiger Okoshi, The Boston Camerata, The Boston Cello Quartet, A Far Cry string orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Okay Temiz, Erkan Oğur and Brenna MacCrimmon. He studied western classical piano with his mother Fethiye Sanlıkol and started giving piano recitals as early as age five in Turkey. In 1992, he studied with the internationally-acclaimed Turkish composer/pianist Aydın Esen and won a scholarship to Berklee College of Music. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Composition from the New England Conservatory. Sanlıkol is the president of DÜNYA, a musicians’ collective dedicated to contemporary presentations of Turkish traditions, alone and in interaction with other world traditions, through musical performance, publication, and educational activities. Sanlıkol is also the director of New England Conservatory’s Intercultural Institute. His book The Musician Mehters (2011), about the organization and the music of the Ottoman Janissary Bands, was published in English by The ISIS press and in Turkish by Yapı Kredi Yayınları.