CV
Serâ Tokay, chef d’orchestre et philosophe, est titulaire d’un doctorat de philosophie à la Sorbonne Paris I et d’un doctorat de recherche en science biomédicale à l’Université de Ferrara. Pianiste de formation, elle a poursuivi des études de direction d’orchestre au Conservatoire de Lausanne.
Fondatrice de l’Orchestre Symphonique de Şişli à Istanbul, une formation soutenue par le Maire de Şişli dans un but d’éducation populaire, elle créait ultérieurement la Philharmonie Lutèce, orchestre de chambre rassemblant des jeunes musiciens lauréats du Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris.
S’étant illustré dans les œuvres de Schönberg, Berg et Stravinsky, cet orchestre s’est vu confier par la Fondation Igor Stravinsky à Genève le droit d’exécution publique des transcriptions originales pour formation de chambre d’œuvres orchestrales de Stravinsky.
Croisant l’approche phénoménologique avec les neurosciences pour élucider la relation empathique entre le chef et l’orchestre, Serâ Tokay a rejoint l’équipe du neurophysiologiste L. Fadiga pour une recherche sur les bases physiologiques de la direction d’orchestre qui a mis au jour un critère inédit de l’efficience du chef à partir des enregistrements cinématiques de l’orchestre.
Serâ Tokay,
Orchestra conductor, Philosopher
Born in Istanbul into a family of architects of Russian descent, Serâ Tokay has become an orchestral conductor with dual nationality, Turkish and French. Beginning her musical education as a pianist, she studied conducting at the Conservatoire de Lausanne and at the Conservatoire National de Limoges.
Janos Fürst, Vsevolod Polonsky, Alain Voirpy and H. Klopfenstein are those whose successive influence most marked her development. Seven years of apprenticeship under the baton of the young Russian conductor, Polonsky, introduced her to the spiritual heritage of Mravinsky and his great Soviet school of conducting.
Along with her music studies, Serâ Tokay has acquired the tools of philosophical reflection on music in the phenomenological tradition. To this end, she pursued a philosophical curriculum which has led her to a philosophy doctorate at the Sorbonne-Paris I jointly with a biomedical science phD at the Ferrara University.
Her concern with the empathic relation found its counterpart in the thinking of the neuro-physiologist Luciano Fadiga, of the University Degli Studi di Ferrara, one of the authors of the discovery of ‘mirror neurones’. A programme has been developed to make possible research into the cerebral foundations of gestural communication. A series of kinematic recordings of stringed instrumentalists focused on their conductor’s baton have been made with a view to measuring the “driving force” exerced by the conductor on the orchestra. Publications : Journal of Latex 2007; PLoS ONE 2012; Nature 2019.
Serâ Tokay has been musical director and principal conductor of the Sisli Symphony orchestra in Istanbul. This orchestra, made up of some 66 young graduates from the State Conservatory of Istanbul, was set up by the Mayor of Sisli in an attempt to make the values of a universal culture available to the people.
In the context of a bi-lateral Turkish-Afghan project proposed in 2004, Serâ Tokay went to Kaboul in response to an invitation from NATO, with a views to founding the classical School of Music at Kaboul. The deterioration of the security conditions in the country made it necessary for her to postpone the realisation of this project.
Despite beginning her conducting career with a full orchestra intended for the symphonic repertory Serâ Tokay later discovered a new source of inspiration in music written for chamber orchestras. A significant tightening of the instrumental material would allow her a mastery of tone more in keeping with her ideal. She was invited to conduct an exceptional concert at the Collège de France, Paris in the framework of a scientific colloquium.
In 2011 Serâ Tokay created the Lutèce Philharmonic orchestra, a chamber orchestra consisting of a string quintet together with a collection of brass and wind instruments, all played by young French musicians, graduates of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. The repertory was made up of the work of composers from the early part of the 20th century: Schönberg, Berg, Webern, Hindemith, Bartok, Stravinsky and Britten. This orchestra gave its first performances in Paris and London. Invited to Geneva by the Stravinsky Foundation, the orchestra interpreted original transcriptions for chamber orchestra of works by Stravinsky. The orchestra performed Schönberg’s Chamber Symphonies at the Carnegie Hall in New York, where french musicians were joined by talented American musicians. Their efforts were enthusiastically written up in the international press.
Serâ Tokay authored Le corps musicien Editions Liber 2016.