Revnak: A Turkish Sufi music group that shines the spotlight on women
Sufi music (Islamic religious music) has been perceived as a man’s domain -- all semazens (whirling dervishes), the most renowned composers and the most successful performers of Sufi music have traditionally been men.
This understanding is surely the reason that women have taken a back seat in Sufi music. However, for eight years a group has existed that aims to change this perception. The name of the group is Revnak.
Revnak is a group that has its origins in the Mevlana Education and Culture Association and was founded in 1999. While the objective of the association was to serve as a Sufi music and sema (whirling) center for males, things changed in 2003.
Among the founders of this group was Birsen Çakmut, a Turkish classical music artist. She decided to organize a music group that only consisted of women. To this end, she got in touch with friends from her time as a student at the İstanbul University State Conservatory. Next she contacted her fellow artists and, one by one, she gathered the people who love Sufi music.
Revnak comprises 15 people. Six are saz (a stringed instrument) players and nine are singing artists. Almost all of them were educated in a conservatory.
This high level of musical knowledge enables them to select whichever song they like and work on it individually. They present their songs in the various Mevlevihanes (a lodge of the Mevlevi dervishes), in events organized by municipalities and also in concerts. A sema ritual takes place on the stage while they sing.
Although Çakmut points out that the interest in Sufism has increased in recent years, she mentions that Sufi groups consisting of women don’t draw much attention. Çakmut thinks this is partially because of their gender and partially because some people disapprove of them for making Sufi music. Çakmut states that she would prefer giving a concert to viewers who are only women, if she had the choice.
Aynur Demir is the group’s neyzen (reed flute player). She came to know Sufi music when she was 30 years old. At the time she was studying at university, which she began attending as a mother of two. She still has the same feelings that she had the first day she heard the sound of the ney (reed flute).
On the year that Demir entered the faculty of divinity of Marmara University she heard the sound of a ney coming from a classroom and followed the sound upstairs. She could not stop herself from standing in the doorway and listening to it. She has now been playing the ney for 15 years.
Demir describes what it is like to play the ney: “There is peace in this music. I feel as if I’m praying to God relentlessly. It is as if my heart is always mentioning God.”
Another member of Revnak is Lale Duğa. Her family supports her interest in Sufi music and she has a very strong connection with the music. She plays the classical kemençe (a small three-stringed violin) and she has been a music teacher for 17 years.
In 1982, Duğa began playing the classical kemençe, which produces the melodies that give soul to Sufi music. Aside from minor breaks, Duğa has played the kemençe ever since.
Seda Tüfekçioğlu is the kudüm (a small double drum) player, which means bright and shiny. Tüfekçioğlu learned to play the kudüm in the conservatory of the Bursa Metropolitan Municipality while she was studying chemistry at Uludağ University. After she returned to her hometown of İstanbul, she continued playing the kudüm.
After working as a chemist for three years in İstanbul, she received her master’s degree and continued to pursue her PhD in the department of religious music of Marmara University’s faculty of divinity.
Tüfekçioğlu mentions that she has become much closer to God and acquired a very different mood thanks to Sufi music. She said that ever since she began playing Sufi music and performing music with divine melodies that remind one of God, she performs much better and with deep feeling.
Picture: Group Revnak. Photo: Sunday's Zaman.
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