Şıra or sira is a Turkish non-alcoholic drink made from slightly fermented grape juice. It tastes sweet due to the high fructose it contains. Its colour is terracotta. It's mostly served with İskender kebap. A flavored version of şıra is served in the Marmara Region with the name of hardaliye. Hardaliye is basically a şıra but it's aromatized in mustard seeds and cherry leaves for 15 days. Hardaliye is usually served in special occasions as an appetizer.

Yılmaz Erdoğan (born 4 November 1967, Hakkâri, Turkey) is a Turkish filmmaker, actor and poet, who is most famous for his box-office record-breaking debut comedy film Vizontele (2001) and the television series Bir Demet Tiyatro (1995–2002/2006-2007).

Yilmaz Erdoğan spent his childhood in Ankara until he moved to Istanbul along with his family.His family is of Kurdish ethnic. In 1987, he dropped out of his civil engineering studies at Istanbul Technical University and joined the On Duty Theater Staff (Turkish: Nöbetçi Tiyatrosu) managed by Ferhan Şensoy. He also became chief screenwriter at Levent Kırca’s long-running television sketch show, Olacak O Kadar. In 1988, he founded his own theatre company, Güldüşündürü, and staged a successful production of his self-penned Suleiman the Magnificent and Rambo (Turkish: Kanuni Sultan Süleyman ve Rambo).

In 1994, he founded Beşiktaş Cultural Center (Turkish: Beşiktaş Kültür Merkezi) with business partner Necati Akpınar and achieved recognition as Mükremin Abi alongside actress Demet Akbağ in the ground breaking television series Bir Demet Tiyatro (1995–2002) on Star TV. He also continued his theatrical success with a series of plays and musicals, including his one man show, Cebimdeki Kelimeler, and recorded a poetry album called, Kayıp Kentin Yakışıklısı, which includes seventeen poems accompanied by traditional Turkish music composed by Metin Kalender, Nizamettin Ariç and Ali Aykaç.

Ablaye Cissoko is a musician from Senegal, who plays the kora. His show is called "Le Griot Rouge" (named after his second album) sounds about the legend of the man who has created the kora. During this performance, Ablaye Cissoko transmits with smoothness, grace and intelligence the values of a generous tradition and sings with sincerity the peace and the respect of the other. He usually plays all around the world. His tours passed through Portugal, France, Belgium, Senegal, Mali, Canada, Germany, Norway, Russia.

His newest album "SIRA" is a duo with trumpeter Volker Goetze and has received raving reviews and peaked in January 2009 on CMJ's world music radio charts. The album is now #5 on CMJ and still rising.

A feature-length documentary follows Cissoko, who is determined to preserve his thousand-year-old tradition. In the documentary Cissoko has a dream to have a thriving cultural center where children can come to learn the traditions of their forefathers.

Volker Goetze is a German trumpeter. He toured West Africa, Europe and Asia. He is featured on numerous recordings, and recorded with international artists such as Nana Vasconcelos, Lenny Pickett and others. He has also performed with Steve Lacy, Brian Lynch, Peter Kowald, and Craig Handy.

Mr. Goetze graduated from the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop in 2007. He was a recipient of a full scholarship by the DAAD, and won 1st prize from the Dr. Konrad Kraemer Culture Award. In 2005 his composition, “Tree”, for large ensemble, was nominated for the BMI Charlie Parker Composition Award. "Tree" has been performed at the Merkin Hall in New York City. Volker Goetze studied with the famous trumpeter Markus Stockhausen at the Hochschule für Musik Köln and Michael Mossmann at the Aaron Copland School of Music in New York.

In 2007, he signed a record deal with ObliqSound, for a duo project with Ablaye Cissoko, a master Kora-player and singer from Senegal, which Goetze produced. The music was recorded in Africa, and the CD was released in October 2008. Part of the artist’s profit goes to TOSTAN, a human-rights organization in West Africa. In addition, Mr. Goetze's large ensemble CD & surround DVD, recorded at the Clive Davis Studio in New York City, will be released soon. Future projects include a multimedia event for a silent movie of Fritz Lang, which will comprise musicians from New York and Senegal, with performances in Dakar and New York. Besides music, Volker Goetze is currently producing a documentary on Griots in Africa entiled The Griot.

Ferman Akgül (born 25 December 1979; Ankara) is a Turkish songwriter and the singer of the rock band maNga. He writes both lyrics and music.

İbrahim Ferman Akgül was born on 25 December 1979 in Ankara, Turkey, and was introduced to music at the age of 9 or 10 with a simple piano. He later entered the music circuit in 1998, when he was studying at Gazi University Architecture Faculty. Initially in the hardcore group "Virgin Pulp" using a turntable, Ferman later became the vocalist in the group, before moving onto "Colik". He later started working with Özgür Can Öney in the group "70lik." After a long time with "70lik", he entered the group "Seven" where Cem Bahtiyar was the bass guitarist. He took a sabbatical later, before entering maNga in 2001 as per the invitation by Özgür. He has since graduated from Gazi University Architecture department and is currently doing a masters in the Marmara University Cinema department.