Ceren Necipoğlu

Ceren Necipoğlu — Biography

Fatma Ceren Necipoğlu was a harpist and university lecturer, one of the best-known names in harp playing in Turkey, who gave about a hundred concerts at home and abroad. She taught harp and piano at Anadolu University and was a member of the World Harp Congress and the Harp Art Association. She died on 1 June 2009 over the Atlantic Ocean, on her way home from a concert in Rio de Janeiro.

An Istanbul native, she studied harp at the Istanbul Municipal Conservatory and the Istanbul University State Conservatory while attending the Deutsche Schule. She graduated from Boğaziçi University's Translation and Interpreting department in 1997, then studied in the harp departments of Louisiana State University and Indiana University in the United States. Back in Turkey she played in the Bursa Regional State Symphony Orchestra and from 2003 to 2006 worked as assistant department coordinator in the Socrates Erasmus Programme. She spoke English, French and German.

As a student she won prizes at the International Harp Festival competition in Wales in 2006, the International Slovenia Harp Competition in 2007 and the 10th World Harp Congress Young Harpists Concerts in 2008, and she twice won Indiana University's Marjorie Schlamp Winters harp scholarship. Her remains were found two and a half years later and identified by DNA testing; after a service at the Teşvikiye Mosque on 24 November 2011 she was buried in Kanlıca Cemetery.