2011–2012

Van Project

The project, realized with the support of Anadolu Kültür, comprises the musical research carried out in various cities across Anatolia by the fourteen-person music group Van Project formed of members of Yerkir Union together with ethnomusicologist from Turkey. Van Project is an Armenia-France centered civil society institution, with members with ages ranging from 16 to 20. The team carried out interviews with elderly citizens and local musicians that could provide information about local traditions in the cities that were visited, and held workshops with young people, and also performed concerts.

The aim of Yerkir Union's music group Van Project is, with Anadolu Kültür's support, to seek out the traces of the local musical tradition of Anatolian cities and the traditions of Armenians that once lived on this land and to record those who continue to exist but face disappearance. A further aim is to bring together musicians from Armenia with musicians from Turkey to form an exchange of knowledge and experience and to build a path of dialogue.