Percussionist becomes influencer with goblet drum

Ece Çelik – ISTANBUL

The coronavirus pandemic hit the entertainers the most, one of them being a female percussion artist who had to resign from her orchestra, but little did she know that her videos of playing the goblet drum would make her a social media sensation.

“People getting astonished while seeing me play goblet drum gives me a kick,” Ceren Özdemir said.

Born in the western province of İzmir and raised in the Northwestern province of Çanakkale, Özdemir’s interest in percussion instruments started when she was just 5 years old.

“Until the university, I played the drums,” Özdemir said, noting that she was also named “the queen of goblet drums.”

It was Selçuk Yüksel, her teacher at the Eskişehir Anadolu University, where she was studying fashion design and con-servatoire, who advised her to play the goblet drum.

“It was not so hard for me to make that change,” she said. “At a charity night, I performed a show with classical music and a goblet drum. Eskişehir Mayor Yılmaz Büyükerşan, one of the spectators, invited me to play for the city orchestra.”

Getting enriched in her musical career with the orchestra experience, she also started filling her pockets by giving extra percussion lessons.

However, things turned upside down with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as all the musical shows, concerts and activities canceled.

So, she started establishing musical contents for her social media accounts. One day, close to the end of the pandemic, she attended a show in a YouTube channel, where her life changed for real.

Invitations from venue owners stormed on her from across the country.
Today she travels the country with her goblet drum, performing shows at hotels, venues and live on social media accounts.

Her latest video was shared by Pervin Ersoy, wife of the country’s culture and tourism minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy.

“While I played in the orchestra, some asked, ‘Can a woman play goblet drum?’ Then I said, ‘I did, so happened.’ Music has no gender,” she stated proudly.