Analysis of the traditional Kazakh music performers and their performance characteristics in terms of performance theory

The concept of "performance" has developed under the title of "performance theory" thanks to the studies of some experts from different disciplines as folklore, sociology, anthropology, philology and psychology over the last century and has gained a theoretical structure. In the studies based on "performance theory" three dynamics called "performer", "audience" and "traditional narrative" were focused and the importance of the "context" was highlighted. The discipline of ethnomusicology gets help from studies on "performance theory" undertaken by different disciplines like anthropology, sociology and folklore while analyzing the performances in the field researches performed on the music of a culture. This study aims at analyzing and evaluating the performance qualities of the musicians who transmit the elements of cultural memory via music in Kazakh Turks' social life and are called with different names like "baksı", "jırav", "jırşı", "akın", "änşi", "öleñşi", "sal-seri" and "küyşi" on the basis of the approaches in terms of "performance theory". In the first section of this study consisting of three sections, information derived from the experts'' ideas who study on "performance" and "performance theory" is given and the relationship between the concept of performance and music is handled. In the second section, the structure, genre and instruments features of traditional Kazakh music are emphasized. In the third part the traditional musician types called "baksı", "jırav", "jırşı", "akın", "änşi", "öleñşi", "sal-seri" and "küyşi" were handled one by one and they were evaluated according to the "performance theory" assumptions.