A 22-year-old Turkish musician is changing the lives of Syrian people
living at Turkey’s Elbeyli refugee camp in the southern province of
Kilis.
Mustafa Ertekin has formed a music group for
Syrian performers who have fled the war in their own country to revive
their profession and culture inside and outside a refugee camp that is
home to 24,000 people.
The musical group is composed of
11 refugees and “orchestra chief” Ertekin, who has made a concerted
effort to find players to fill what he called a “gap” in the camp –
namely the lack of music.
“It was very tiring at the beginning,”
says Ertekin when asked how the idea of forming the group arose. He
firstly wandered across the province for a long time and before telling
camp officials about his idea.
He says he was lucky to find the
most of the group members at the camp after getting official approval
from the Kilis governorate.
The group, called Mustafa Ertekin and
His Orchestra, performs concerts and play at welcoming ceremonies for
national and international officials visiting the camp and on special
days such as Children’s Day, held annually in Turkey on April 23.
“Music
is viewed as a hobby by some people, but my purpose is to make these
Syrians express themselves with music,” he says, describing the work of
the group as a “long-term” effort.
Explaining the roles of the
members, who were musicians in Syria before the war, Ertekin said six
played instruments, three were vocalists and two others, including one
female performer, were soloists.
In the white container where
they practice, up to 11 instruments could be seen, including an oud, a
violin, a bağlama (an instrument with three double strings), a cumbus (a
mandolin with a metal body), a ney (a reed flute) and a drum.
The non-profit group mostly plays Turkish classical music, sometimes blending Turkish and Arabic songs during their performance.
Some of the group members have even become registered teachers at schools inside the camp who teach music to Syrian children.
HDN 26/02/2016
