CEREN NECIPOGLU

Ceren’s story as we know her was molded with a picture she saw adorning the cover of a notebook, a picture of a girl playing the harp. Love for the harp and music from back when she saw that picture took small Ceren on a journey from her prep year in the conservatory to her graduate studies in Indiana University extending well into Anadolu University as a faculty member.

Hers was a quest to shape her students like unique and delicate flowers in all aspects, a life dotted with performances both in Turkey and abroad, a life which was wholeheartedly dedicated to the harp…Filled with color, filled with love of music and arts…

It has been ten years since Ceren’s passion for the harp strings came to a regrettable end when she lost her life in a tragic airplane crash in the stormy skies above the Atlantic. Today, her students whom Ceren molded into bright young musicians at the Harp Department – a department she had established at Anadolu University – are carrying the torch she had lit.

During her tenure at the university, Ceren attended countless events at national and international level, with her students. Not only were these events invaluable in terms of experience for her students, they garnered great admiration as well. Ceren always cared very much for the impact of such events on the formative years of young musicians. Her drive for pushing the limits of the harp, especially in the form of fusing the melodies of Anatolia with the sounds of her harp, was unrelenting. This is the reason dozens of songs and pieces of music have been dedicated to such a humble musician by such notable artists, at a time such dedications are a becoming rarity.

Ten years after her passing, Ceren’s family, artists and students who are her extended family, truly wish to carry Ceren’s mission adorned with love for the harp and music into eternity, in the form of “Ceren Necipoglu Istanbul International Harp Festival”. Through this festival her precious ideals will continue to live on in Istanbul, a city built on two continents, which has been the beating heart of arts and culture for centuries.

May the love of arts and music flourish with the youth…