TCF's Turkish Music Portal now features an online Turkish Music Dictionary, which was created by an expert team led by Dr. Melih Duygulu, Ethnomusicologist at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University with support from a multi-year grant.

TCF and the World Affairs Councils of American (WACA) announced their nationwide educational  partnership for 2012. This program, now in its fifth year, is open to all chapters of WACA. It consists of a 3-part, year-long educational program that features a Teachers Workshop of Turkey, a Turkey Study Tour and cultural programs. To see how a WACA chapter in your region can be part of this program, please visit the WACA website for more information.

TCF participated in the 18th Annual International Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Fair - SOFA Chicago 2011, which was held at the Chicago Navy Pier Festival Hall on November 4-6. The TCF exhibition featured works by Malik Bulut, Meral Deger, Nejat Kavvas and Serdar Seremet, who also were present at the show. TCF sponsored Turkish modern artists at this prestigious event for the fifth year and is the only non-profit organization represented at SOFA.

In November, the TCF Istanbul office hosted two lectures in the TCF Lecture Series in Turkish Culture and Art. Presented in Turkish and English, Prof.Dr.Engin Akyurek, Istanbul University, Department of Art History gave an overview of the early history of Istanbul in two lectures titled "Istanbul in the Byzantine Period."

The December lectures will feature Dr. Melih Duygulu of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, who will speak on December 1^st, on Folk Music in Turkey and the recent studies he conducted in the field as part of a multi-year TCF funded project. Dr. Yolande Crowe, Art Historian, will speak on December 2^nd on the origins and the role of trade in designs of Kutahya ceramics. The TCF Istanbul Lectures are organized under the guidance of Prof.Dr.Nurhan Atasoy, TCF Senior Scholar in Residence. Past lectures can be viewed online.

Dr.Recep Karadag, Head of TCF DATU, and Dr.Sumiyo Okumura, TCF Resident Art Historian  presented at the International Symposium of Silk Worm Breeding and Woven Silk in Alanya, Turkey last month. Dr.Okumura spoke on "Weavings at the Crossroads of East and West: Silk Catma Yastiks” and Dr.Karadag presented on “16th Century Ottoman Brocades in the Topkapi Palace and their Reproductions."

This month, Dr.Okumura will be a guest lecturer at Marmara University Faculty of Art History and speak on the Cintamani Motif. Dr.Karadag will present a paper at the 5th International Congress on Science and Technology for the Safeguard of Cultural Heritage in the Mediterranean Basin, to be held in Istanbul on November 22-25. His paper is titled "Dyestuff and Metal Analysis of some 16th Century Ottoman Silk Brocades."

As part of its mission to preserve Turkish cultural heritage, the TCF Natural Dye Research and Development Laboratory - DATU began a new project with the Topkapi Palace Museum. As part of this project, DATU will conduct dye analysis on 110 samples, as well as dye and microscopic measurements on nearly 60 artifacts in the Topkapi Museum. These free analytical services provided to the Topkapi, as well as other Museums in Turkey and in third countries, help institutions to identify the correct origins and ages of the artifacts and guide conservation and restoration methods. 

TCF renewed its multi-year support of the Moon and Stars Project in support of the New York Turkish Film Festival and Turkish film festivals in Chicago, Madison and Milwaukee.

A TCF grant was awarded to the Oregon Geographic Alliance at Portland State University to sponsor a 3-week study tour to Turkey for K-12 Oregon teachers to explore Turkey’s geography. The program is also funded by the National Geographic Education Foundation and the National Geographic Society.

A TCF grant to the Rochester Institute of Technology will help underwrite a photography exhibition titled “Strangers to Ourselves: Art as a Cosmopolitan Commitment.” The exhibition will open in Spring 2012 and showcase five women artists who live and/or work in Turkey: Gul Ilgaz, Iz Oztat, Ozgul Arslan, Nancy Atkan and Roberley Bell.