Summer’s final set
Island jazz, dinner with a legend and Istanbul’s stages warming up make a case for one last summer detour.
Welcome back to AL-MONITOR Istanbul.
The last week of August is prime real estate for looking ahead: Soon galleries and concert halls will put out their best, and the city will properly reopen. Wait, did we say reopen? Not so fast. First, one last stop at Bozcaada Jazz Festival, dinner named for the island's most beloved hostess, and a Kadikoy opera house's box office to remind you that autumn is, in fact, coming. Here's to delayed returns.
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Thanks for reading,
Nazlan (@NazlanEr on X)
P.S. Have tips on Istanbul’s culture scene? Send them my way at nertan@al-monitor.com.
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1. Leading the week: Bozcaada jazz festival
Bozcaada Jazz Festival enters its 10th year. (Courtesy of Bozcaada Jazz Festival)
Ten years ago, Bozcaada Jazz Festival began as a small gathering inspired by the island's own transience; a decade on, the festival has made that instinct its explicit theme. “Impermanence” frames the 10th edition, running Sept. 4-6 across three stages, a scattering of "Kesif," or “Discovery,” venues, and whatever surprise corners of the island organizers dream up between now and September.
The premise borrows its logic straight from jazz: no performance repeats, no note lands the same way twice, and that unrepeatability is the point rather than a flaw to route around. The main stage returns to Ayazma Monastery, Habbele Beach carries the program from daylight into electronic sunset sets, and the free, walk-up Salhane Sahnesi acts as a radar for newer acts. The lineup, drawn from the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Turkey, ranges from straight jazz through electronic, improvisational and, organizers promise, psychedelic registers.
Bands play across the island. (Courtesy of Bozcaada Jazz Festival)
What distinguishes Bozcaada from an ordinary music weekend is its perfect penetration into the island known for its aromatic grapes: panels and workshops on island life, viticulture, entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence and cultural policy sit alongside ceramics and music workshops, bird-watching outings and informal jazz talks scattered across the island's geography.
This year's visual identity, developed with Monroe, comes from Madrid-based artist Gamze Yalcin, who will run workshops on the island that explore the theme of impermanence directly with residents and visitors, extending the festival's premise into the visual arts as well as sound.
Ten years in, a festival built around the ungraspable has become a fairly permanent fixture on the cultural calendar, backed by Turkey's Tourism Promotion and Development Agency, main sponsor Paribu, and a supporting cast that includes the Dutch and French cultural institutes.
Date: Sept. 4-6
Location: Bozcaada, Canakkale (main stage at Ayazma Monastery)
Tickets: bozcaadacazfestivali.com
2. Word on the street: Madam Antula
An ancient door opens to the garden of Madam Antula. (Courtesy of Madam Antula)
On Bozcaada, dinner comes with a legend attached. Antula, born on the island in 1944, became Tenedos's most-beloved cook and hostess long before her name went on a sign, remembered as a bridge between the island's Greek and Turkish communities and a soft touch for anyone in need. The restaurant bearing her name, Madam Antula, attached to the Panorama Hotel, serves organic mezze and mains with a sea view, plus live music and sirtaki on select nights.
Location: Alaybey Mah., Dogan Oz Cad., Degirmenler Sk., Bozcaada/Canakkale
3. Istanbul diary
"Letters from Attica." (Courtesy of Sakip Sabanci Museum)
Sakip Sabanci Museum's performing arts program Stage at the Museum marks its 10th year with "Transformation Through Play," pairing theatre, talks and performances across the museum grounds with its concurrent Yoko Ono exhibition, plus a children's puppet show and scent-and-sound workshops. Until Aug. 30.
Elgiz Museum, Turkey's first contemporary art museum, marks its 25th year with the 18th edition of its Terrace Exhibitions, "Connections & Intersections," selecting 31 sculptors from 190 open-call applicants for large-scale outdoor work overlooking the Istanbul skyline. Until Oct. 17.
Tickets are on sale for the 6th Istanbul International Chamber Music Festival, running Sept. 6-24 at Sureyya Operasi under founder and artistic director Nil Kocamangil. The opening night quintet, Fedor Rudin, Alexandra Soumm, Mate Szucs, Lydia Shelley and Julien Liebeer, makes its Turkey debut, with free masterclasses and pre-concert artist talks rounding out the program.
4. Book of the Week: ‘Gallipoli: The Long White Cloud’
Sail east from Bozcaada and you hit the Gallipoli peninsula within the hour, which makes Buket Uzuner's "Gallipoli: The Long White Cloud" the natural companion for this leg of the trip. Uzuner, one of Turkey's most translated novelists, splits the book across two timelines: 1915, tracking an Ottoman lieutenant and an ANZAC soldier through the same trenches, and 2000, following a New Zealander tracing her great-grandfather's grave on the peninsula. Its quiet provocation, that the same man could be a hero on both sides of a war, has kept it in print for two decades without losing its bite.
5. Istanbul gaze
Rami Library. (Courtesy of Rami)
Rami Library, a converted 19th-century Ottoman barracks in Istanbul, has won "Best Green Library" at the 2026 IFLA Green Library Awards, beating finalists Jinjiang Library in China and Munster Technological University in Ireland. IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, judged entries on climate resilience, contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and sustainable library practice.
6. By the numbers
As the countdown begins for COP31 — the UN's annual climate summit running Nov. 9-20 in Antalya under the Turkish presidency and Australian-led negotiations — we take a look closer to home at where Europe's plastic waste ends up:
• Turkey was the single largest destination for EU plastic waste exports in 2025, importing 503,100 tons, according to Eurostat, more than Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam or the UK.
• The top 10 destination countries accounted for roughly 94% of all plastic waste the EU-27 exported to non-EU countries in 2025.
• Germany supplied nearly a third of that waste (30.7%), followed by Belgium (21.3%) and Spain (12.6%). Together, the three account for nearly two-thirds of all EU plastic waste shipped to Turkey.
