Turkish Music in NYC: Istanbulive 3
Turkish music in New York Central Park
Turkish music will be showcased in New York third year in a row on Friday, June 17. The concert will be held in Central Park SummerStage and this time, unlike the first two concerts in 2009 and 2010, it will be an evening concert starting at 6:00 pm and ending at 10:00pm. The admission will be free and music fans are advised to arrive early, as crowds are expected.
Turkish music: From Istanbul to New York
This year’s Istanbulive concert will feature the renowned Turkish singer Zulfu Livaneli and the Turkish alternative rock band maNga from Istanbul, joined by New York’s own NY Gypsy All Stars that recently returned from a very successful tour in Turkey. Zulfu Livaneli has been singing traditional Turkish folk rhythms for four decades and is also a political figure in Turkey. This will be maNga’s first New York appearance, although the Turkish band has loyal fans in both Turkey and all across Europe. 2009 and 2010 marked two consecutive successful years for maNga’s music career and the group extended its fan base outside of Turkey with the Best European Act Award by MTV Europe in 2009 and the impressive second place ranking at the prestigious Eurovision Song Contest in 2010. maNga successfully blends Anatolian melodies with rock and electronic music.
Serdar Ilhan and Mehmet Dede, the two founders and producers of Istanbulive concert series, showcased Turkish music in New York very successfully in 2009 and 2010 and approximately 12,000 New Yorkers combined attended the first two concerts. The first Istanbulive concert in 2009 featured the all time favorite Turkish band Mazhar Fuat Ozkan and the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest winner Sertab Erener, and over 6,000 music fans stayed till the very end of the hours long concert despite the pouring rain. The following year, Istanbulive 2 featured the Turkish pop singer Kenan Dogulu and the Turkish rock band Duman from Istanbul. The success of the first two concerts promises Istanbulive 3 to be a good showcase of Turkish music and culture in NY this year as well.
29th Annual NYC Turkish Day Parade: No Parade in 2010
New York Turkish Day Parade
This year’s Turkish Day Parade will be held only as a festival in Manhattan’s Dag Hammarskjold Park on Sunday, May 23. Different than every other year, there will be no parade this year. The festivities in Dag Hammarskjold Park will start at 12:00 noon on Sunday and several prominent singers from Turkey will take stage during the festivities. Among the special guests from Turkey, there will be the Turkish national soccer team, Turkish and Azerbaijani folk dance troupes, pop singer Kenan Dogulu and the Ottoman military band (Mehter Takimi).
Turkish Day Parade usually takes place on the third or the fourth Saturday of every May, however, it was rescheduled to Sunday this year, as the Turkish national soccer team was scheduled to play against the Czech Republic team on Saturday, May 22nd. The parade part was then canceled, as Sunday, May 23 is the designated day for the Israeli parade, and it was instead planned as a full day festival in the Dag Hammarskjold Park in Manhattan. The city doesn’t allow more than one parade on the same day in Manhattan for security reasons.