Kemençe players from Black Sea, Thessaloniki meet in İstanbul source: today's zaman Adem Ekiz, 30, from Trabzon's Beşköylü neighborhood is one of the most popular kemençe players in Thessaloniki these days. Greek families invite him to their homes and parties and sing along with him during the Greek folk songs that Ekiz writes and composes himself.   Ekiz helped organized a unique event on Wednesday. He and his friend Lermi, who is also from Trabzon, along with Nikos Mihailidis, 34; Filipos Kesapidis, 38; and Mihalis Siopis, 25 -- who all grew up in the same neighborhood in Thessaloniki -- came together in İstanbul to perform at a concert called "Black Sea melodies from Trabzon and Thessaloniki to İstanbul" in which they played the kemençe. The artists received plenty of praise for choosing to put aside differences and form a "kemençe brotherhood." Concert organizer Tülay Özkül says the concerts will continue. Ekiz has been friends with Thessaloniki kemençe players for 10 years. Mihailidis' family lives in Thessaloniki but his relatives lived in Bafra and Sivas. He has been playing the kemençe since he was a young boy. He came to Turkey for the first time in 1994. He traveled across Turkey from Sinop to Rize. He met Greeks who live in different Turkish cities, played the kemençe for them and listened to them play the kemençe. He studied political science in Athens and has been doing his doctorate in cultural anthropology at Princeton University since 2006. The topic of his dissertation is "music and the sense of belonging." He is researching how music unites people. He completed his field work in Trabzon in September. He speaks Turkish very well. He took classes at TÖMER while he completing his master's degree in political science at Boğaziçi University in 2000. He gives private Turkish lessons to students and businessmen back home. Most people who are interested in the kemençe know Mihailidis very well. He was the first artist to release an album of Greek folk songs in Turkey, meeting the other musicians in the process. His album "Horon ke Trağodiya" was released in 2000. However, the album was not very popular. "I was very surprised when I met people who played the kemençe in İstanbul. We started making music together. That is how the first Greek folk song album got released in Turkey. But of course I was not familiar with the political dynamics at that time. People started reacting, saying: ‘They've taken our kemençe, too. Why Greek folk songs?' It was an emotional album that was made purely out of our love for our culture," he says. But the album clearly created a sense of empathy as the young musicians from the two different countries have been inseparable ever since. Mihailidis has released two solo albums in Greece and Canada. He released a Greek folk song album with Kesapidis in 2004. The young artists Mihailidis and Kesapidis also released an album called “From Trabzon to Thessaloniki” a few months ago. I ask Ekiz how he learned to speak Greek. He explains that in Beşköy people know how to speak both Turkish and Greek. He said that since his three brothers always played the kemençe, he grew up with the sound of the instrument. Not only did he compile Greek folk songs but he also composed music for them. He has been performing at the Avlea restaurant in Thessaloniki for the past three months. Ekiz and Kesapidis, who have made three albums together, met in 2003. Kesapidis, who studied classical music, actually owns an electrical supplies company. But music is not just a hobby for him. He is a professional musician. He also has three solo albums. Siopis, who has been studying music since he was very young, plays the clarinet in the group.