Candlelight Symphonic Gala: Sibelius & Scheherazade

About this event

The candlelight concert format has found a passionate audience across Europe's great music cities, and Istanbul is no exception. Here, at the Atatürk Kültür Merkezi's flagship Türk Telekom Opera Salonu — one of the most acoustically refined and architecturally striking halls in the country, reborn after years of renovation — the format reaches a particularly resonant setting. The combination of Sibelius and Scheherazade is programmatically astute: Sibelius's orchestral voice, austere and elemental, gives way to Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, a suite so saturated in melody and colour that it practically narrates itself, drawing on the very same storytelling tradition that runs deep through this city's cultural DNA. Scheherazade, of course, is more than a concert piece in Istanbul — it carries a symbolic charge. The thousand-and-one nights tradition is not abstract here; it is the city's own inheritance. Hearing this music in a hall that looks out toward the Bosphorus, lit by candles rather than stage floods, collapses the distance between the music and its mythological origins in a way that few concert experiences can. The AKM, reopened in 2021 after a decades-long closure, has swiftly reasserted itself as the cultural anchor of Taksim and a venue of genuine international standing. Its opera salonu offers excellent sightlines throughout, and the candlelight aesthetic softens the grandeur into something more intimate. Arrive early to take in the foyer and, if the evening is clear, the views from the upper terraces. Dress smartly but not formally — the atmosphere rewards effort without demanding it.