Derya Türkan is a young master of classical Turkish kemenche. He plays improvisational as well as the Ottoman classical music repertoire. Türkan was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1973. He grew up in a musical family and his first music lessons were with the well known Turkish cellist Firat Kiziltug. Türkan attended and graduated from the Turkish Music Conservatory Instruments Education Department of the Istanbul Technical University, where he studied with Ihsan Özgen, an internationally recognized Turkish musician. In 1990, Türkan was invited to perform as a guest musician by the Turkish Cultural Ministry's Istanbul National Turkish Music Ensemble, directed by Necdet Yasar. In 1993 Türkan worked as a guest musician at Turkish Radio Television, Istanbul Radio division for one year, where he earned outstanding praise. He worked alongside such master musicians as Alâeddin Yavasça, Bekir Sidki Sezgin, Niyazi Sayin, and Erol Deran. During this time, he performed at many concerts both nationally and internationally with well known groups such as the Necdet Yasar Ensemble, and Ihsan Özgen`s Anatolia. Türkan has given many concerts in the United States, France, Germany, Finland, Italy, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Poland, Greece, Israel and many other countries in addition to his native Turkey. In 1996, Türkan performed with Turkish ney player Kudsi Ergüner at Yehudi Menuhin`s 80th birthday celebration concerts, organized by French President Jacques Chirac, as an invited musician. Türkan also has toured and recorded with Kudsi Ergüner's various ensembles. Some of these projects include Ottoman Drums, Ottamania, IslamBlues and La Banda Allaturka. Like his teacher Ihsan Özgen, Türkan aims to follow and develop the teachings of one of this century's genius musicians, Tanburi Cemil Bey, and today continues to work on different projects in his music career with this goal in mind. Ahenk and Letter from istanbul are consequent steps towards Türkan's goal. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.