Not Every Day Is Spring

Oud master Udi Hrant Kenkulian (1901-1978) lived most of his life performing and selling instruments in Istanbul. His success abroad would eventually land him on an Istanbul Radio segment dedicated to Turkish Art Music – a salon style music derived from Ottoman classics, but standardized to modern republican values. As part of the state run Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, Istanbul Radio was established in 1927. In the process of building the radio station, the vast Pangaltı Armenian cemetery was destroyed, its marble tombstones dispersed and integrated into the city’s architecture. The destruction also made room for the Hilton Hotel, Taksim Square and Gezi Park, turning the area into the iconic centre of the new metropolis. In 2013, when bulldozers began to demolish Gezi Park to build a shopping complex in its place, they exposed remnants of the Pangaltı tombstones, before being blocked by mass protests.