Please note that the programme is the same for both nights.

Maviş GÜNEŞER / vocal
Kemal KAHRAMAN / tembur
Ahmet TİRGİL / violin
Güneş DEMİR / guitar

An album launch for Mavis Güneşer’s debut album AX DE VAJI released in March 2019 which contains political laments in Zazaki language from the province of Dersim in Kurdish region of Turkey. All the songs included in the album compiled by Metin & Kemal Kahraman Brothers during their over 2 decades long field research in Dersim region. This album is based on oral history collection project which explores the last 100 years of the history of Dersim through laments related with painful and bloody political events taken place in the region.

Maviş Güneşer was born in district of Varto in Kurdish region of Turkey. She started her musical career with the band called Agirê Jiyan in İstanbul in 1994. She worked with Agirê Jiyan for about 3 years and participated in many performances. Maviş’s first self produced solo album called Keje released in 1998 and only composed Zazaki songs. Both thematic content and musical production of this album was like the start of search for her to find her own musical authenticity. Maviş Güneşer had to leave Turkey for political reasons in the late 90s. In the early years of her exile, she met Metin & Kemal Kahraman Brothers in Berlin and this encounter became an important turning point in her musical life. The journey with Metin & Kemal Kahraman Brothers continued and became alike a school for her where she learned and discovered both the more of Zazaki language, culture and history of the Dersim region. She took part as the soloist in Metin&Kemal Kahraman Brother’s albums entitled Meyman (2002), Çeveré Hazaru (2006), Masalların Şahı Saé Moru (2010) and Oğul (2012) and shared the stage with the duo in Europe and Turkey.

Maviş also worked with a Germany based band called Lilith from 2002 to 2006. Lilith was a women only member band who composes and sang laments in German, French, Kurmanci and Zazaki dialects of Kurdish, Yiddish and Turkish. She also produced soundtracks for many fiction and documentaries.

In her first UK appearance at Cafe OTO she will accompanied by Kemal Kahraman on Tembur (long lute fretted string instrument), Ahmet Tirgil on Violin and Güneş Demir on Guitar. Performance will be companied by slide projection of the people & local leaders mentioned in their songs of repertoire. CD + Book of the project will be available for purchase while stories and lyrics in english for each songs included in the project will be available in hard copy.

Dersim is a province in Kurdish region of Turkey populated by Zazaki and Kurmanji speaking Kurdish Alevi population. The Turkish government military operations in 1937 and 1938 resulted with massacre of over 80.000 of the region’s habitants.