Monterey, CA - Following the immense success of the Turkish Arts and Culture Festivals in 1998, 1999 and 2000, the Turkish American Association of California (TAAC) organized the fourth Annual Monterey Bay Turkish Arts and Culture Festival in cooperation with the TAAC Monterey Bay Chapter and Horon Turkish Folk Ensemble, in Monterey on August 4-5, 2001. The festival had accomplished to draw more than 15,000 people. It was a great effort by the Turkish American community living in Northern California for the fourth year in representing and promoting the Turkish Arts and Culture, and the job was well done!...
 

It was a cultural feast for all the visitors and the weather was sunny and beautiful. The live music band with Sahin Gunsel - oud/vocal, Allan Ishmael - kanun, Mustafa Tasci - saz, George Chittenden – zurna, Dan Auvil– davul and Yusuf Mustafa - percussion played both days during the festival and the visitors danced ciftetelli, line dancing and halay with live music. In addition to the live music, the Arkadas Turkish Folk Dance Ensemble from San Jose and Horon Turkish Folk Ensemble from Monterey performed dances from Black Sea, Artvin and Gaziantep regions, accompanied by the musicians George Chittenden - zurna, Dan Auvil - drum and Mehmet Ali Goktan - accordion. Following the dance performances, the guests joined the folk dancers for line dancing. Arkadas’ new man and woman Black Sea suite was admired by the audience and received great applause. Other than folk dancing, Gunsu Temirer and Sabriye Tekbilek danced for the bellydancing fans...
 

At the food tents, with the great help of the executive chef of Istanbul Pera Palas Hotel Haydar Us, delicious samples from the Turkish cousine were served... Three doner kebap machines were turning on both days to try to keep up with the orders, Adana kebap was cooked on the BBQ grills, and rice pilaf, vegetarian eggplant dish, cacik, kisir, shepherd salad, dolma (stuffed grape leaves), borek with feta cheese were among the additional dishes. At the dessert tent; baklava, Kemal Pasa and sekerpare were finished by the sweet lovers.
 

In the arts and crafts section, Mine Toprak displayed her ceramic work and impressed the visitors with her demonstrations. Anatolian weaving corner prepared by Gulizar Baggson, who weaved Hereke silk carpet during the festivals, with a nice kilim/carpet decoration from Turkey. Ela Kucukcakar presented her Turkish cookbook and displayed her Turkiye corner with gorgeous views from Turkey and gave information about the touristic sites in Turkey.
 

The children's tent was full of children on both days, who were coloring Turkish Flags on tiles, coloring and making Karagoz-Hacivat puppets, singing Turkish songs, listening Turkish folk tales, practicing Turkish folk dancing and playing Turkish children games...
 

There were also vendors at the festival, selling evil eyes, silver bracelets, earrings, necklaces, carpets and kilims, Turkish goods (delight, helva, olive, coffee, ...), music cassettes and video tapes... Turkish coffee and tea tent was another tent with long lines in front of it. A lot of people wanted to taste the Turkish coffee and tea. Some were in the line for the Turkish coffee fortune reader.
 

Following a very intensive marketing effort prior the festivals, the events were announced on the local radios and TV stations via live interviews and announcements/articles on local papers. The festivals made to the evening news of the ABC and CBS local TV channels and pictures from the festival published on Monday edition of the local newspapers.
 

The Turkish American Association of California (TAAC) thanks to the sponsors, the volunteers and the TAAC Monterey Bay Chapter and Horon Turkish Folk Ensemble members who made this year's festival possible. The major sponsors of this year's festival were Childcare Careers (Aydin & Hulya Koc), Turkish Promotion Fund, Tunc and Lale Doluca, Ibrahim and Sandra Korgav, California College of Communicaitons (Omer & Leman Uyuklu), Turkish Things (Yavuz V. Atila), ATAA (Assembly of Turkish American Associations), Istanbul Jewelry (Murat Atila) and Active Import/Export (Atilla G. Yadik).

Special thanks to Ilge Ozersen the executive director of the fourth Annual Monterey Bay Turkish Arts and Culture Festival, Sahin Gunsel for organizing the entertainment and, Abdullah Gedik for participation of the Arkadash Turkish Folk Ensemble to the festivals, and the festival committee members; organization committee members; Deniz Bilgin, Gulizar Baggson, Anna Hardy, Umit Samur and Ulviye Fischer.

The information about TAAC and it's activities and the photos from the festival can be found at the website www.taaca.org.