antarja

This conceet program ensures a highly emotive experience for both contemporary music enthusiasts and those encountering it for the first time.

Ağır&Penderecki is a unique collaboration between artists from diverse cultural backgrounds. They have come together to create a musical experience that offers the audience an opportunity to appreciate the iconic composition of Krzysztof Penderecki, a renowned late Polish composer, and Orkun Ağır, a young composer and bağlama-virtuoso of Dutch, Georgian and Turkis roots. Orkun Ağır has developed his own musical language, which is partly inspired by Penderecki’s music.

In 2019, the composer began working on his Quintet for bağlama. After being inspired by Antarja’s performance of Penderecki’s 3rd string quartet, he decided to dedicate the piece to the Antarja Quartet. We embarked on a long-term project with the help of Dutch institutions like TalentHub Brabant and Intro. The project was presented in January 2020 through five concerts, the largest of which took place at the renowned Muziekgebouw in Eindhoven.

Orkun Ağır introduced bağlama to classic chamber music, creating an original concert programme that beautifully combined his unique sound with the masterpiece of Penderecki. This was proven during our concerts in Utrecht, Maastricht, Den Bosch, Eindhoven, and Heerlen.