Journalist Kristine Aghalaryan discovers a choir in Turkey:The next stop on my journey through Turkey took me to the ancient city of Antioch (Turkish Antakya), founded near the end of the 4 century BC by a general of Alexander the Great.
Antakya was annexed by Turkey in 1939.
There’s a multi-national choir in this city of 200,000 near the border with Syria that includes Armenian songs in its repertoire. Yilmaz Osfrad, the choirmaster, told me that the group’s mission is to bring peace to the world through song.
The Turks and the Armenians, let’s say, haven’t gotten along well for the last, oh, thousand years.
In fact, the unwieldy name of the group, Antakya Choir of Cultures, expresses this concept and has taken the singers to many lands to accomplish that mission of peace and understanding.
“If, one day, the presidents of Armenia and Turkey solve the border issue, we will be there at the opening ceremony singing with our Armenian friends,” Yilmaz told me.
She goes on to interview an Armenian member of the choir, and provides a video.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.