Today, classical guitar music in Turkey isa lively area compared to the period before the 1980s. There are many universitiesand conservatories that have classical guitar departments as well as private institutions offering classical guitar courses. In this musical climate, while some guitarists launch a performance career on standard repertoire, others choose to create their own music by incorporating influences from Anatolian music.

These compositions/arrangements are generally based on Anatolian themes, motives or forms. The idea of composing/arranging this fusion with an equallytempered Western instrument is not a phenomenon of the last twenty years in Turkey. The history of what is mostly referred toas “East-West” synthesis in culture, had already begun in the Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century and reached its peak after the foundation of the Turkish Republic (1923). Thus, this idea covers a period of almost 180 years. In this article, major classical guitarists and composers in Turkey will be introduced and their approaches to arrangements and compositions of synthesis pieces will be categorized. Two case studies of works by classical guitarists Bekir Küçükay and Ricardo Moyano will be presented in the last part of the paper in order to answer the question, “How do they compose/arrange these makam-based Anatolian folk themes so as to be played on an equally-tempered Western instrument, such as classical guitar?”

The Impact of Anatolian Music on Classical Guitar Repertoire