By Heidi Trautmann

30 years TRNC and an invitation was distributed to attend the festivities at the Atatürk Cultural Centre. It was with a feeling of obligation and pleasure that I would attend to honour the event. I enjoyed the art exhibition which was opened by Serdar Denktaş with short words – usually there are speeches held by two or three to pay respect to the artists and the occasion.

There were some artists’ works displayed that I haven’t seen for many years in public, which was a very positive surprise, such as Mustafa Öztunç with his wood prints and Yücel Yazgin, and some new faces.

The artists on display are: A.E.Karagöz, Bahar Çıralı, Bülent Salderay, Gamze Anil, Gökçe Şekeroğlu, Gönen Atakol, Hikmet Uluçam, Hüseyin Özinal, Inci Kansu, Ipek Karagöz, Ismet Tatar, Mustafa Hastürk, Mustafa Öztunç, Osman Keten, Serkan Ilseven, Türksal Ince, Uğurçan Akyüz, Yücel Yazgin. The exhibition is still open until 29 November.

Do you know that feeling when you are invited to a birthday party and the host is not present? At least the first row at the concert was ‘yawningly empty’, just two kids were ‘holding the fort’.

Be that as it may, it had a very funny impact on the concert goers and on the musicians on stage. There were no flowers on stage, there was no speech whatsoever, oh yes, I saw among the audience two former cultural directors…I mean, the artists have given their time to get prepared for the concert, they are not being paid, and it is my belief that they should be paid in form of some respect, to be greeted and to be thanked.

Here I list the musicians and singers to whom all from the audience are most grateful and we thank them for their appearance:

In the sequence of appearance: Laden Ince, soprano; Atakan Sarı (piano accompaniment); Gözdem Ilkay (piano recital;  LTB Orchestra: Zehra Bayraktar (violin), Nurten Ersever (violin) Ayşe Sadık Yerdelen (violoncello); Dilsad Asadova (mezzo soprano) Atakan Sarı (piano accompaniment); Eran Raman (flute); Mine Sadrazam (piano accompaniment).

The two singers - Laden Ince with her voice clear and pure as a bell, and Dilsad Asadova with the warm volume of mezzo soprano – it gave me the sensation of fine silk and velvet; a great pleasure for all of us - to judge from the heartfelt applause from the audience; unfortunately the auditorium was not full as one could expect for the occasion, but I heard from some of my friends that they had received the invitation only a day before.

Another highlight was the concluding performance with Erman Raman and Mine Sadrazam. We all loved the Csardas by V. Monti.

One of the performers said to us when she came out to join us: Not even 10 minutes gone and nobody is there anymore….no celebration…nothing….how very strange!

Where have we left our good manners, I am asking!