Since 1973, İKSV’s annual Istanbul Music Festival has given classical music lovers a chance to attend live performances by renowned soloists like Itzhak Perlman, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Joshua Bell, Cecilia Bartoli, and Lang Lang, and by international symphony orchestras under the direction of conductors like Lorin Maazel, Daniel Barenboim, and Christoph Eschenbach.

This year – the 40th anniversary of İKSV – the festival will feature 23 unique concerts from May 31st to June 29th, at eight different locations. In addition to the Aya İrini Müzesi (Hagia Irene Museum), which has been a venue for the festival since its inception, the concerts will take place at the Haliç Congress Center, the Lütfi Kırdar International Convention and Exhibition Center, the Dutch Consulate, the Süreyya Opera House,Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall, the Rectorate of Istanbul University, and the Istanbul Archaeological Museums.

Şile (Greek: Χηλή) is a small holiday city on the Black Sea, 70 km from the city of Istanbul, Turkey. Şile is the also the name of the district (ilçe) and the municipality (belediye) that contain the city center of Şile. According to the 2007 census, the population of the district was 25,169, of which 9,831 lived in the city of Şile, 2,096 in the nearby town of Ağva (Yeşilçay) and 13,242 in surrounding villages  However,

Hagia Sophia (from the Greek: Ἁγία Σοφία, “Holy Wisdom”; Latin: Sancta Sophia or Sancta Sapientia; Turkish: Ayasofya) is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. From the date of its dedication in 360 until 1453, it served as the Greek Patriarchal cathedral of Constantinople, except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople of the Western Crusader established Latin Empire. The building was a mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931, when it was secularized. It was opened as a museum on 1 February 1935

The Süleymaniye Mosque (Turkish: Süleymaniye Camii) is an Ottoman imperial mosque located on the Third Hill of Istanbul, Turkey. It is the second largest mosque in the city, and one of the best-known sights of Istanbul.

The Süleymaniye Mosque was built on the order of Sultan Süleyman (Süleyman the Magnificent) “was fortunate to be able to draw on the talents of the architectural genius of Sinan Pasha” (481 Traditions and Encounters: Brief Global History). The construction work began in 1550 and the mosque was finished in 1558.