TURKISH MUSIC BAND SHARES STAGE WITH ARMENIAN AND PALESTINIAN MUSICIANS

Turkish "Kardes Turkuler" (Bogazici Performing Arts Ensemble) will perform together with Armenian musician Arto Tuncboyaciyan and Palestinian musician Reem Kelani at Istanbul's Turkcell Kurucesme Arena on June 30, soloist Fehmiye Celik told a press conference.
"We are expressing our demands that nations should live equally on these soils with these shows," Celik also said.
Celik said the Middle East needed urgent peace, and defined both Arab enmity and Anti-Semitism as bad.
"Therefore, we will altogether voice Arab and Jewish songs," Celik said.  
Also, Tuncboyaciyan said that races and religions were the spices of life.
"What is important is humanity. As an Armenian, I have no hatred against Turks," Tuncboyaciyan said.
Kardes Turkuler came into being in 1993, as a concert project by the Bogazici University Folklore Club. The concert, which aimed to interpret Anatolian folksongs based on their own cultural structure and in their original languages, was comprised of four sections: Turkish, Kurdish, Azerbaijani and Armenian.
The project, based on the ideal of living together in fraternity, also took a stand against the polarization and tensions which had been created among different peoples in a multicultural land. Later on, the Kardes Turkuler project began broadening its repertoire, performing songs from such cultures as Laz, Georgian, Circassian, Roman, Macedonian and Alevi among others. These were arranged in accordance with the philosophy of the ensemble.