Merhaba, We are honored and proud to have celebrated the biggest Turkish music event put together in the US on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at Central Park SummerStage. The press coverage on newspapers, websites and blogs has been simply phenomenal. It was published on the front page of many major newspapers in Turkey and the story ran on multiple TV stations. In the US, esteemed publications like The New Yorker, Daily News, Village Voice, Time Out and National Geographic previewed the event. Online music resource Lucid Culture called it "the Turkish Woodstock." According to the unofficial numbers 6,500+ fans were in attendance (with hundreds more who couldn't get in) making Istanbulive the highest attended SummerStage show this year. This is truly a privilege. This event would have not happened without the support of Levent Demirel & Hasan Zongur of the Turkish Culture & Tourism Ministry and Erika Elliot & James Burke of SummerStage, who all shared our vision for Istanbulive. We thank them immensely. One of our goals when we started this project was to highlight the common denominator between Istanbul and New York by featuring guests from other countries. Mutual understanding and respect between ethnic cultures gave way to a diverse group of cultures and religions who called Istanbul home for centuries. On Saturday thousands of people embraced this strong friendship and bond with invited guests, Vassilis Saleas from Greece, Christiane Karam, who hails from Armenia, Ismail Lumanovski from Macedonia and Brooklyn Funk Essentials from the US. Saleas' remarks summed it up: "We play amazing music along with our Turkish friends. We are brothers." Thanks again for giving us the opportunity to produce Istanbulive. Our heartfelt gratitude goes out to all the fans who made this day a historic event at a time when the world needs more solidarity, peace and unity. Serdar Ilhan & Mehmet Dede Istanbulive Producers The official Istanbulive t-shirt is on sale at Tulumba.com