Anyone been to the Hagia Sophia in Instanbul?

I was there last fall, Ziljon. There is definitely no organ in the Hagia Sophia, which ceased being a cathedral many centuries ago. For many more centuries, it was a mosque, and now it is only a museum. There is no seating, and it's a protected, fragile space, so I suspect that concerts are not held within the Hagia Sophia itself. (I don't know that for certain, though; I was only there as a tourist.) However, the area near the Hagia Sophia (in the Sultanhamet district, although you'd want to be even more specific than that) includes many other historic buildings (including the Blue Mosque) and a large, open-air green area where people gather for celebrations. There might be an open-air concert there, so sort of in the shadow of the Hagia Sophia, if that helps.

I was going the last time there but was arrested coming out of the Blue Mosque which is right across the way and didn't get to go.

Organs are definately a Catholic/Protestant/Mormon thing. Eastern orthodox churches favor hymns, and it was converted into a mosque before the invention (or, should I say, reinvention) of pipe organs. Mosques most certainly do not have pipe organs. Muslims too, prefer hymns.

Likely, you wouldn't find a pipe organ in Istanbul, except maybe in a Catholic or Protestant church there, if any, or in a music conservatory.

I agree that you wouldn't have loud noises in the main space. There are lots of precious mosaics there that could potentially be damaged by loud sounds and crowds of people.

Yeah....it's filthy.

Reckon what I'm crossing here?

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1938276&postcount=643

The world's busiest waterway. Probably too noisy for any sort of floating concert.

I enjoyed my Bosphorous crossing, personally. We went out on a boat for the morning and had quite a lot of fun.

You might consider setting a concert at the university, which would certainly have space for an orchestra to perform and is located not far from the sumptuous Suleiyman mosque. I think I just misspelled that.

The Greek transliteration is Agios Sophia (Ah-E-ous So-Fee-uh), your title is the Latin transliteration. It means "Holy Wisdom" I have some descriptions of it from the 1930's, I think, when it was still a mosk. Also, back in the 800's during Charlemagne's time, the Byzantines sent two organs to his empire, indicating that there probably was an organ there at that time. Since then the Orthodox have cut back on the use of instruments, but Greek Orthodox churches still use them today in America. It was built by the Byzantine emperor, Justinian, who, amazingly, conquered the Vandal and Goth empires in north Africa and Rome. He built it because an older church burned down during a riot. The dome collapsed in an earthquake late in his reign, and although the architect was dead, the chief builder was still alive and gave his opinion that the dome was too weak because it had not been built high enough. It was built higher and ... the rest is history as they say.

I went there in May of 2006. It was under renovation at that time so the interior had tons of scafolding in it. It was quite impressive especially since elements of both its use as a mosque and a church could be seen.

I took a cruise down the Bosphorus. It was cool as it went right through Istanbul.

Let me know if you want any pics and I can dig them up.

I learned about it while doing a crossword puzzle w/ my pal Google.
Seven down, I think it was.
_______ Sophia
h-a-g-i-a

Doesn't help? Sorry. Ask me about arresting people or advanced pre-hospital treatment. Or horses stuff.
Or working dog stuff.
Or long distance running.
Also, I make really, really good pasta by hand. And my nachos will always do in a pinch.
Or ask how much wine I've had tonight.

Ziljon said:

Well, dang! Thanks for all the info folks. I still want to have something take place there, though.

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I don't see why you couldn't have something like a string quartet there. In terms of noise, damage, getting the instruments inside, etc., there wouldn't be a problem. There may be a question of how they got permission to do a concert, but you don't necessarily need to address that in your story. As long as you don't make it sound like they regularly have concerts there and your characters just happened to go to one, it should seem plausible. Maybe it's a special event to welcome some foreign dignitary or open a conference on Byzantine art, or something.

It's a museum now and it's massive. I don't think that the acoustics would be good for music, since noise would tend to bounce around the stone walls. I don't know if a concert would be forbidden, though. It's not used as a mosque anymore, and you don't need to cover your head (if your'e female) as you do with the other mosques in the neighborhood.

They also display Christian era art. Turkey is a very interesting country. I'm planning on going back again some day – I've been twice.

I stayed in a small hotel directly across the path from the stone walls that surround the place – we were probably 10 feet from it. They still have the call to prayer coming from loud speakers every day.

StephanieFox said:

It's a museum now and it's massive. I don't think that the acoustics would be good for music, since noise would tend to bounce around the stone walls. I don't know if a concert would be forbidden, though. It's not used as a mosque anymore, and you don't need to cover your head (if your'e female) as you do with the other mosques in the neighborhood.

They also display Christian era art. Turkey is a very interesting country. I'm planning on going back again some day – I've been twice.

I stayed in a small hotel directly across the path from the stone walls that surround the place – we were probably 10 feet from it. They still have the call to prayer coming from loud speakers every day.

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I've heard that the acoustics are quite good there.

RumpleTumbler said:

I was going the last time there but was arrested coming out of the Blue Mosque which is right across the way and didn't get to go.

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can we get some more story on this? The Blue Mosque. An arrest. sounds interesting.

My gut feeling is there would be an outcry among Orthodox believers if you tried to schedule a concert there. Traditional Orthodox don't use their churches for concerts. But it's just a gut feeling.

The organs in some Greek Orthodox churches in the U.S. are a custom borrowed from non-Orthodox Christian churches the Greeks encountered after they got here.

Ravenlocks said:

My gut feeling is there would be an outcry among Orthodox believers if you tried to schedule a concert there. Traditional Orthodox don't use their churches for concerts. But it's just a gut feeling.
.

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I'm not sure what you mean by Orthodox. Hagia Sofia hasn't been an Orthodox church in centuries; it's a mosque, or rather, it was a mosque for centuries and now it's a museum.

ideagirl said:

I'm not sure what you mean by Orthodox. Hagia Sofia hasn't been an Orthodox church in centuries; it's a mosque, or rather, it was a mosque for centuries and now it's a museum.

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The Eastern Orthodox still think of it as a church.