The problem of interpretation and the figure of conductor in traditional art music within the context of cultural capital

This graduate thesis tracing the way from the traditional Turkish art music bands/ choruses and the conductors working in these communities in İzmir questions whether there is a western sense of conduct in traditional Turkish art music. The study tries to understand the conductors and where the society places the conductors in the social structure. The study also questions how the conductors are influenced by their cultural capital while conducting, how they make the distinctions among themselves and how much they have used cultural capital in interpreting traditional Turkish art music works. The study aims at determining in the context of cultural capital techniques and skills the conductors performed for their conducting skills, what the musical and non-musical elements are to be a conductor, whether there is a problem of interpretation in the traditional Turkish art music, what the conductors pay attention to while rendering and teaching their works, the factors affecting the conductors taste and like, which strategies the conductors use to acquire and consolidate the position on the field. This study consists of two parts. In the first part of the work, Bourdieu sociology and basic concepts of this sociology are included. In the second part of the study, information about the concepts of traditional Turkish art music chorus and conductor was given in the direction of data obtained as a result of literature search and field work, and the relationship between conductor and cultural capital and habitus in traditional Turkish art music was tried to be revealed. It is an important question for the study which forms of cultural capital are used by the conductors while conducting traditional Turkish art music. For this reason, in second part, this subject was tried to be examined in detail under the headings of "Conducting Traditional Turkish Art Music in the Context of Institutianalized Cultural Capital", "Traditional Turkish Art Music Conductor Techniques in the Context of Bodilyized Cultural Capital" and "Conducting in the Context of Objected Cultural Capital." The ethnographic data of this study is based on our field work, consist of observations and interviews for 20 amateur choirs among 208 detected by the time, 2016.