Music Venues from Concert Hall to Stage
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The city's stages come at different scales and their programmes diverge, one weighted to opera, another to jazz, another to classical. This route is built to see the venues by day and stay for a performance in the evening. Five stops, and check the programme boards before buying tickets.
Route Stops
Atatürk Culture Center (AKM)
The new building at the edge of Taksim Square, where the spherical mass of the opera hall shows through the glass front and which can be visited by day. You may enter the foyer without a ticket, and the bookshop, design store and cafe inside are open all day. The programme board lists opera, ballet, symphony and theatre at once. To see the main hall, designed for acoustics, you need a performance ticket. Look out over the square from the terrace floor.
Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall.
In Harbiye, one of the halls carrying the city's classical and jazz programme. The building is plain outside but the hall has good acoustics and mid-size capacity, so sitting close to the stage is possible. The programme is weighted to orchestral concerts, chamber music and seasonal jazz series. Tickets are usually affordable with student discounts. The box office is open during the day and you can pick up the programme brochure there. The military museum and the Harbiye open-air theatre are in the same area and can be combined in a day.
Zorlu Performing Arts Center.
In Zincirlikuyu, a multi-hall stage complex set inside a shopping centre. The large hall is for musicals and big concerts, the small halls weighted to theatre and stand-up. International tours usually come here, so the programme is full of visiting names. Ticket prices are higher than at the other halls. The metro exit connects directly to the building, which makes getting home after a show easy. There is not much to see by day; the reason to come is the evening programme.
Süreyya Opera House.
On Bahariye Avenue in Kadikoy, built in 1927 and turned into an opera stage after long use as a cinema. The reliefs on its facade and the period details in the foyer are preserved, and if the door is open by day you can see the foyer. The hall is small and close to the stage, the most intimate scale in the city for opera and ballet. Tickets sell out quickly, so buy as soon as the programme is announced. The area around is full of bookshops and cafes, so passing time before a show is easy.
Galata Mevlevi Lodge Museum.
Right beside Tunel, today a museum and the place that explains where the city's musical tradition comes from. The octagonal ceremonial hall at its centre is wooden and built for acoustics; go up to the gallery and look down. The display holds instruments such as the ney, kudum and rebab along with documents of musical notation. The burial garden and its gravestones form a separate section, so look at the forms of the headpieces on the stones. There are ceremony programmes on certain days, so ask the times at the entrance. Closed Mondays.
