The Composers
Özkan Manav is one of the most prolific Turkish composers of the younger generation. Amongst his teachers were influential Turkish composers such as Adnan Saygun and Ilhan Usmanbaş. In addition, he worked intesively with American composers Lukas Foss and Marjorie Merryman at Boston University where he earned his DMA.
Manav’s music has been performed extensively in Europe, Turkey, Australia, Malta, Marocco, and the US, and was issued on several CDs in Turkey and Germany. His pieces have been performed by ensembles such as Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, members of the Moldavian Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, Moskva New Music Ensemble, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s 10:10 Ensemble, Eastman School of Music Percussion Ensemble, and ALEA III.
Özkan Manav has received several composition prizes, amongst them the Nejat Eczacıbaşı National Composition Competition (1998), the BMW Musica Viva Composition Prize (2nd prize, 1998), as well as the Deutsche Welle Composition Prize (2002).
He currently serves as a Professor of Music and chair person of the Composition Division at the Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul.
Tolga Tüzün’s compositional studies started in Istanbul with Pieter Snapper and Mark Wingate and continued in New York with David Olan, Tristan Murail, and Philippe Leroux. As a young composer, Tolga Tüzün participated in various master classes with Roger Reynolds, Rand Steiger, Edmund Campion, Mara Helmuth, Horacio Vaggione as well as in the prestigious IRCAM courses to further study electro-acoustic composition with Brian Ferneyhough, Gilles Racot, Hughes Dufourt, Hans Tutschku, and Joshua Fineberg. Mr. Tüzün’s compositions have been performed in various cities throughout US, Europe and Turkey.
Tolga Tüzün is Assistant Professor of Composition and Computer Music at the Istanbul Bilgi University.
After finishing her studies at the Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul, Zeynep Gedizlioğlu studied with Theo Brandmüller in Saarbrücken, Ivan Fedele in Strasbourg, Daniel Teruggi and François Donato at the Group de Recherches Musicales (GRM) in Paris. She also participated in the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt and at the Centre Acanthes in Avignon.
Laureate of numerous scholarships and prizes, Ms. Gedizlioğlu received a commission from the world-renowned Arditti String Quartett in 2007. Her music was performed throughout Europe and Turkey by many leading ensembles such as the Ensemble Recherche, the Navarra Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Ensemble Accroche Note.
Zeynep Gedizlioğlu is currently attending Wolfgang Rihm’s composition class in Karlsruhe.
A graduate of the Istanbul Technical University Center for Advanced Music Studies (MIAM), and the University of Memphis, Murat Yakın worked with Pieter Snapper, Reuben De Lautour, Hasan Uçarsu, and Kamran Ince.
Yakın’s compositions make ample use of electronic resources such as pre-recorded samples and real-time signal processing. These compositional methods and electronic sound worlds are also reflected in his acoustic compositions.
His music received performances at many leading contemporary music festivals world-wide, such as the New Music Concerts in South Africa, the Ctrl-Alt-Del and Divertimento music festivals in Istanbul, as well as the Imagine Music Festival and the New Sound Concert Series in the US.
Currently, Murat Yakın serves as an Assistant Professor for Composition at the Başkent University in Ankara.
Before coming to Harvard University in 2003, Tolga Yayalar studied Jazz Composition and Jazz Guitar at the Berklee College of Music. At Harvard, Tolga worked with Bernard Rands, Julian Anderson, Harrison Birtwistle, Brian Ferneyhough and Helmut Lachenmann.
As a result of his encounter with the music of Anton Webern, his first “classical” works incorporated serialist techniques with a jazz idiom. Today, Tolga’s music focuses on different systems of microtonality and reflects his interests in architecture, psychoanalysis and post-structural narratives. His music received performances by significant contemporary music players such as Ying Quartet, Orchestre National de Lorraine and Garth Knox.
Turgut Erçetin studied composition and music theory with Pieter Snapper, Kamran Ince, and Michael Ellison at the Istanbul Technical University Center for Advanced Music Studies (MIAM). Despite his young age, Mr. Erçetin has already received several commissions for solo as well as ensemble compositions from artists such as the German contemporary music group “ADAPTER”, the American clarinet player Richard Faria, and the Turkish pianist Seda Röder.
Erçetin’s compositional focus lies on post-spectral as well as computer-aided music. By using unconventional instrumentations such as didgeridoo, throat singing, kora, viola de gamba, and electric guitar and so forth, he introduces a wide range of soundscapes into his works.
From fall 2009 on, Turgut Erçetin will participate in the Graduate Program for Composition at Stanford University in California to work with Brian Ferneyhough and further focus on computer music at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA).
