Turkish-Armenian concert canceled due to threats
Debbie Lehmann
Issue date: 4/9/07 Section: Campus News
Editor's Note: This article, published in April 9 Herald, was based on information available to The Herald at the time. Additional information regarding the cancellation of the Turkish-Armenian concert was included in an article in the April 10 Herald. That article can be found here.
A Turkish-Armenian concert scheduled for Friday was canceled on short notice after the Armenian musicians and the president of the Armenian Students Association received threats from members of the Armenian community.
ASA and the Turkish Cultural Society organized the concert, titled "The Armenian Composers of the Ottoman Period," to promote dialogue between their communities. The concert was dedicated to Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist who was assassinated in January outside his newspaper office by a Turkish nationalist who later confessed to the killing. Dink had been a target of nationalist anger for his articles about the mass killings of Armenians by Turks in 1915 that many have called a genocide.
A member of TCS, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the situation, told The Herald the groups started talking about co-sponsoring the event roughly six months ago after members of TCS wrote a column in The Herald that touched on historical relations between Turks and Armenians. The two groups then began discussing the need for joint events to encourage conversation, according to the TCS member.
The TCS member wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that the Armenian musicians and the president of the ASA did their best to resist the "warning messages" they received. However, he wrote that "the situation got serious," and the musicians, followed by the ASA, withdrew from the event. The musicians and the ASA are now "in a very difficult position against some parts of their community," he wrote.