A Journey from East to West, Art Song Canberra, Wesley Music Centre

This aptly named recital, A Journey from East to West, will take the audience from Turkish folk songs to Russian works via the gypsy melodies of Antonin Dvorak.

Ayse Goknur Shanal was born in Brisbane to parents who migrated from Turkey in 1930 and she herself lived in Turkey for several years when she was very young. She says that her mother allowed her to play with neighbourhood gypsy children and she experienced the fiery passions of gypsy mothers that are reflected in many of the songs by Turkish composers with which Shanal will open this recital.

As accompanist Alan Hicks says: "It's always wonderful to hear an artist sing in her own language and Ayse is a beautiful performer and a wonderful interpreter."

The seven Gypsy Melodies op.55 by Dvorak, including Songs my mother taught me, will follow the Turkish songs.

"For me the ideal journey from east to west involves the relationship between Eastern European and Turkish music," Shanal says. "I wanted to bring three regions together through Russian, Czech and Turkish music. A common factor between these three areas is their ties to folk music and a link to nationalism. National identity really comes out in the repertoire."

Shanal says that she loves Eastern European repertoire, which is similar to Turkish music. "The Russian composers whose pieces I'm singing were deeply influenced by Orientalism but not the way that mainland Europe was."

Two songs by Rimsky-Korsakov, What I Secretly Dream About and A Midsummer Night's Dream, will be performed.

"His works have many more authentic oriental elements than you get, for example, in French music," she says. "It's the proximity element. What Rimsky-Korsakov is receiving in terms of information and musical elements is truer and more direct."

To illustrate this point it's interesting to compare works by two composers, one French, one Russian: Ravel's two Scheherazade pieces, one an overture and one a song cycle, and Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherazade, the musical interpretation of the legend of One Thousand and One Nights.

There are three songs by Tchaikovsky on the program: Why?, Wild Nights and If the Day Dawns... and a Rachmaninov favourite: Spring Waters. All the Russian pieces will be sung in Russian but there will be a translation printed in the program.

In 2016, Shanal collaborated with the Ukrainian/Australian pianist Evgeny Ukanov to make a CD of lieder by Schumann and Wagner, Love and Life. Ukanov then suggested that they did some Russian repertoire but Shanal said that she'd never sung in Russian. Ukanov replied: "That's OK. I'll teach you."

Shanal says: "I persevered and I sat with him for hours and hours, repeating one sound hundreds of times. He was very committed and gave me all his time and then we presented a concert of Russian music. From then on I was hooked. He developed a similar passion for Turkish music and we presented a night of Turkish folk songs and Ravel's Sheherazade – not easy to play but he cruised through it. Then he wanted more Turkish repertoire. The irregular rhythms are very stimulating with constantly changing time signatures."

Shanal says of Hicks: "He's so authentic when he plays Turkish folk music. Gypsy music is very proud music and when you completely let go with the sound and the sentiment it's great fun."

Hicks will play one solo work, Scriabin's Etude Op.8, No 12 in D sharp minor. "From the age of eight my piano teacher was the Russian pianist, Zoya Skladneva, and she introduced me to Russian music," he says. "My subsequent teacher was Carmel Lutton and she taught me this Scriabin etude."

Folk music, lieder, performances at the Sydney Opera House with orchestra ... What does Shanal prefer?

"I feel that I can create an intimacy in a large concert hall in the same way that I can in a recital," she says. "You create the atmosphere and the space and the bond with the audience. I'll go wherever the music takes me."