If we sing together – we can live together – Yiltan Taşçı
and Adamos Katsantonis
10 years have gone by in fruitful cooperation for
peace in Cyprus
By Heidi Trautmann
‘Two brave hearts’, a book –published in English, Turkish/Greek
and in Greek - written by Hasan Çakmak about the two bards Yiltan and Adamos
who invited guests from both sides of the green line to come to the Atatürk
Cultural Centre in Nicosia to celebrate with them the 10th
anniversary of their working together for music and for peace.
The 2nd President of the TRNC Mr Mehmet
Ali Talat opened the event on 12 February in the Atatürk Cultural Centre, the
exact date of their first singing event together in the very same place ten
years ago, says Yiltan Tasci in his introduction to the public, and he takes us
through the exhibition of photos that represent important stations of the
cooperation between him and Adamos Katsantonis.
The ‘two brave hearts’ have been active for peace
over the years as we can see from the photos, for example the concert on the
day when Lokmaçı Crossing was opened; events on both sides of the island, be it
in Paphos or in Nicosia, at crucial moments, for example they sang together
with the then two leaders Talat and Christofias the song ‘Dyllirga’; they went
abroad to promote their peace course; and as they said, they are practically on
the way to Korea for another peace concert.
The concert followed in two parts, first with
musicians from the Nicosia Municipality Orchestra with rock music to accompany
the two singers and in the second part with musicians from Turkish and Greek
Cypriot Folk Music Groups with softer tunes with traditional songs. Yiltan and
Adamos sang both in Turkish and Greek and many of the audience joint in. There
were also quite a number of Greek Cypriot guests among the audience. The lyrics
of the songs were partly by Yiltan himself, by the poet Bulent Fevzioğlu and
Tayfun Atabey, and compositions were both by Yiltan and Adamos. In the
traditional music part, a Greek Cypriot got up to expertly show the dance
steps, others joined in, also a young boy not older than 8 years jumped onto
the stage and danced forgetting all around him.
Looking at their curriculum vitae, they are about
the same age, Yiltan born in Nicosia, Adamos in Famagusta, both are poets,
musicians and activists. They prove – as so many artists do – that musicians
know of no border and they teach us that if we look for common things that
unite us we can live together, we must not look for things that separate us.
Here a comment by Adamos on one of his compositions
for which he got a peace award:
“War, you are the obstruction of the Light” – In my
song, I have put War on trial confronting it personally with its crimes against
humanity, and eventually casting upon it in turn what it threatens us with:
WAR…I will always curse you to be exterminated from the surface of the earth”