THE night is filled with the softness of their sensitiverhythms. The atmosphere is calm. They have crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Cairo, to celebrate with their beautiful, gentle music the International Women's Day with the Egyptians. The five-female members of the Turkish Moonlight band charmed Egyptian women, as much as Egyptian men. "I want men and women to live in peace, love and... maybe equality," said Mine Mucur, the founder of the Moonlight band and its piano player, after their concert in the Gomhuria Theatre at the Cairo Open House. "We have equality, but some women are not happy, are not equal with their husbands. Throughout the region, women mostly face the same problems," she told The Egyptian Gazette in an interview. At the age of eight, Mucur started her piano education under the supervision of Hulya Saydam at the Istanbul Municipality Conservatoire. In 1978, she started lecturing in music at Istanbul University's State Conservatoire, where she stayed until her retirement in 2001. Mucur has won several awards at prominent international music festivals around the world as a composer, including the Grand Prix in 2003, Second Prize in 2004 and 2006 at the International Alexandria Music Festival and Second Prize in 2005 at the International Hurghada Music Festival. She launched the Moonlight band five years ago in Turkey. "My idea was to start a female-only band. It's really interesting," said Mucur, who's performed in Egypt 15 times. "I don't any men in our band!" she added with a loud laugh. Another beautiful member of the band is Deniz Akdogan, who plays the kemence (the three-stringed violin). Born in Istanbul in 1984, she graduated from the State Conservatoire at Istanbul Technical University. She is now doing postgraduate studies in teaching music at Istanbul University's Institute of Social Sciences. Akdogan, who has played for years in the famous Turkish Classical Music Ensemble, teaches Turkish music at the private Kadikoy Fine Arts Academy. As for Nurcan Betul Arisoy, who plays the ritm-bendir (an instrument like a tambourine), she was born in 1969. Having graduated from Istanbul University, Department of Radio and TV Broadcasting, she continued her education at Istanbul Technical University's State Conservatoire. Arisoy has participated in music festivals in South Korea and Nigeria and teaches music at a primary school in Istanbul. The fourth member is kanun (zither) player Gorkem Devrim Saoulis. Born in 1977, she started studying music at Istanbul Technical University's State Conservatoire in 1988. Ten years later, she began performing professionally in Istanbul. For the past three years, she has been performing with Erol Evgin in Turkey and abroad. Besides performing, Gorkem is working on recordings. She has made an album, in which she sings and plays Turkish and Greek traditional songs. The fifth member, who joined the group three years ago, is the 30-year-old soloist Mine Gecili. In 2003, she graduated from Istanbul Technical University's State Conservatoire. She has participated as a soloist and violin player in many concerts and TV programmes. "This is the most wonderful kind of music in Turkey. We invited them to come and entertain the Egyptian people," said Turkish Ambassador in Cairo Huseyin Avni Botsali. "This is not the first and not the last." The Moonlight band, which also performed in the Sayyed Darwish Theatre in Alexandria, entertained the audience with Turkish songs and also popular Arab songs, like ‘Aktar' by the Syrian singer Asala and ‘Kelma Helwa' by Egyptian-Italian diva Dalida.
