Ela Nuroğlu and Ezgi Sevgi Can from Ankara, were supported with Turkey-Armenia Travel Grant for their visit to Yerevan for meeting local musicians, giving workshops, and recording traditional songs in Armenian villages.
Ela Nuroglu
“With our music we created a dialogue between societies and introduced the societies and cultures to one another. I think art has an important role for dialogue and is important for our future as well, and the dialogue should take place in other fields as well, not just art. Art is crucial in this respect, because we try to communicate not only through words but with our body, emotions, hearts and everything and this communication is mutual.”
“We sang Armenian songs in Turkey and Kurdistan, and sang in Turkish and Azeri in Armenia. Wherever we played our songs, our repertoire remained as the usual repertoire of Medz Bazar and because of that we wondered a lot about what kind of reactions we would be likely to receive. However when we were playing in the concerts we played without thinking about that and played with all our hearts and people believed in our sincerity.
Ezgi Love Can
“The distance between each other is the length of a song, until we sing and play together. As long as we listen to each other, our struggle is shared by many. Music in its simplest form is the most sincere transmitter and witness of common experiences of people. During my travel being part of such a transmission made me very happy and proud.”