Izmir

Izmir has the oldest literary pedigree on the Aegean: ancient Smyrna's strongest claim to fame is as the birthplace of Homer, and the city has been arguing the case for nearly three thousand years. The excavated agora of the Roman city lies open in the middle of the modern one; the hilltop fortress of Kadifekale — reputedly founded at Alexander's prompting — watches over a bay that made Smyrna the Levant's great cosmopolitan port, a city of Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Jews and Europeans until the fire of 1922 closed that era. Modern Izmir rebuilt itself as Turkey's most relaxed metropolis: the Kordon promenade, the Ottoman clock tower on Konak Square, and a self-image as the republic's liberal, seaward face.

Its musical distinction is personal. Ahmed Adnan Saygun — the founding figure of Turkish classical composition, whose Yunus Emre oratorio carried Anatolian mysticism into the world's concert halls — was born in Izmir, and the city's principal arts complex bears his name: the Ahmed Adnan Saygun Arts Centre, a modern hall on the slopes of Güzelyalı where the İzmir State Symphony Orchestra, one of Turkey's state orchestras, plays its seasons; both are documented in the concert record. The International Izmir Festival extends the stage to Ephesus's ancient theatre down the coast. Homer at the beginning, Saygun in the concert hall: Izmir's acoustics have always been literary.