Albums

Phoenix

Tolga Tuzun’s new album Phoenix is coming out on Friday the 13th!
 
Flute, Alto and Tenor Saxophone: Ezgi Daloğlu
Soprano and Tenor Soprano Saxophone: Engin Recepoğulları
Soprano and Tenor Saxophone: Özgün Tuncer
Clarinet and Bass Clarinet: Beste Su Bayramoğlu
Trumpet: Barış Doğukan Yazıcı
Trombone: Bulut Gülen
Synthesizers and Synth Bass: Zeynep Oktar
Synthesizers, Sound Design and Piano: Tolga Tüzün
Vocals: Duygu Argın
Electric Guitar: Sarp Maden
Electric Guitar: Can Memişoğulları
Electric Guitar: İpek Ektaş
Electric Guitar: Şevket Akıncı
Bass Guitar: Alper Yılmaz
Drums: Volkan Öktem
and
Oerknal Ensemble
ARTéfacts Ensemble
Ventus Ensemble
 
Recorded at: İstanbul Bilgi University Recording Studio, January 2021
Recorded by: Zeynep Oktar
Şevket Akıncı’s guitars recorded by: Mehmet Korkmaz
Produced by: Tolga Tüzün
Mix-Mastering: Emre Malikler
Cover Art: Ekinakis
Graphic Design: Oğuz Büyükberber
iKi Muzik, 2021
Thank you for your support: Garen Talas, Tuba Üzümkesici, Adnan Yalçıntaş, Sema Yalçıntaş, Tayfun Gürkaş, Aslıhan Demirtaş, Hakan Gürvit, Açık Radyo Çalışanları, Oğuz Büyükberber, Yeşim Altıner, Faruk Buyru, Öget Öktem Tanör, Fatma Türe, Çağdaş Arpaç, Demet Parlar, Neslihan Şık, Selen Gülün.

 

 

It’s about time

Yes, it is about time for me to release another album of my compositions in contemporary music. The last one Periphery appeared in 2009. The subtitle featured “compositions for solo instruments and electronics sounds.” Now 11 years later, with a new one subtitled “solo and chamber music works,” I wanted to show you that I kept working and creating in this neoliberal environment that sucks the depth and joy of most of things and substitute them with  shallowness and frivolousness. Consequently, most of the art that is around are sketchy gestures with cosmetic facades. I work hard for mine to not become one of those.

The album is called It’s about time. The title refers to an ensemble piece that I wrote in 2015. When we recorded that piece with Oerknal Ensemble in 2019, due to a computer malfunction we lost some of the takes of one of the sections of the piece. While considering not to include the piece to this collection, I had the idea to rethink it with what we have recorded. The form has changed which in turn changed the harmonic and sonic framework of the piece. So the new piece It was about time now it is not anymore is the only electroacoustic piece of the album. The composition of 2015, the acoustic version, gave its name to the album.

Music is a temporal art, everything we do is a function of Time. The object of our compositional act—sound— is bound with time. It is born within time, it exists only in time and it dies out with time. This is also true for its reception; listening to music takes time. Despite all the technological advances, there is not a formula, an algorithm nor a process that will enable you to listen to music in less time than it actually takes.  This is a fortunate situation for us composers: if our music keeps the listeners interested, involved and engaged, they will lend us an ear for the time the music takes. Knowing that burdens us with responsibility and achieving that requires courage, endurance and hope. I know my music is not listener-friendly, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. After all, do you have to like everything your friends say?

 

The pain they left behind

melted into thin air

and became the baseless fabric

of what we call ourselves today 

(2013)

for flute, clarinet, piano, violin and violoncello

This piece is dedicated to the victims Armenian Genocide and to those who still suffer the consequences.

Oerknal Ensemble

Gregory Charette: Conductor

Susanne Peters: Flute

Daniel Boeke: Clarinet

René van Munster: Violoncello

Jellantsje de Vries: Violin

Sophie Patey: Piano

Recorded at Bilgimusic Studios by Özgün Tuncer

Existo (2011)

for contrabass

from JE VOIS LE FEU. Yannick Haenel, text

Nicolas Crosse: contrabass

Recorded at Bilgimusic Studios by Ozan Yurdakul

Imaginary Neighborhoods of Athens: Dialogue at Monastraki (2018)

for large ensemble

Dialogue at Monastraki  is a part of the larger composition Imaginary Neighborhoods of Athens that was commissioned by the Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens and was premiered by ARTéfacts and Ventus Ensembles, at The Athens School of Fine Arts on June 14, 2018.

ARTéfacts and Ventus Ensemble

Stathis Soulis: Conductor

Kostas Tzekos: Bass Clarinet

Guido De Flaviis: Baritone Saxophone

Recorded at The Athens School of Fine Arts by Giorgos Kostopoulos

and they fell…one by one (2015)

for guitar

William Anderson: guitar

Recorded at Bilgimusic Studios by Tolga Tüzün

Under Pressure (2009)

for Alto Saxophone and Bass Clarinet

DUO X

Naomi Sato: Alto Saxophone

Laura Carmichael: Bass Clarinet

Recorded at STEIM Amsterdam

Five Preludes For Violoncello  (2013)

This piece is commissioned and premiered by Madeleine Shapiro at the Freer Gallery in Washington DC on March 5, 2014.

Eric-Maria Couturier: Violoncello

Recorded at Cité de la Musique, Grande Salle, Paris by Nicolas Berteloot

It was about time now it is not anymore  (2015-2020)

for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, cello and electronics

This piece is dedicated to Oğuz Büyükberber who made every moment of our more than 25 year-long friendship full of joy, encouragement, compassion and music.

Oerknal Ensemble

Gregory Charette: Conductor

Susanne Peters: Flute

Daniel Boeke: Clarinet

René van Munster: Violoncello

Christian Smith: Percussion

Jellantsje de Vries: Violin

Sophie Patey: Piano

Recorded at Bilgimusic Studios by Özgün Tuncer

Cross-Sections / Kesitler

1. Blueprint for lhan Mimaroğlu (2004)

for clarinet and piano

This piece is written for 78th birthday of İlhan Mimaroğlu.

Laura Carmichael: Clarinet

Tolga Tüzün: Piano

Recorded at Q Factory Amsterdam by Tolga Tüzün

 

Concrete Art

New Album by Tolga Tüzün

Listen on Apple Music

Listen on Spotify

Estimate Map

New Album by Tolga Tüzün (Piano) and Özgür Yılmaz (contrabass)

Listen on Apple Music

Listen on Spotify



“Swamped” by NOT Trio

Ned McGowan – Piccolo, Flute and Contrabass Flute
Oguz Buyukberber – Eb, Bb, Bass and Contrabass Clarinets
Tolga Tuzun– Piano

Listen on Apple Music

Listen on Spotify

Oğuz Büyükberber, Ned McGowan and Tolga Tüzün come together once again as Not Trio, this time with a new program of experimental and eloquent works originating from the thought and expressive processes of these three accomplished performer/composers. Compositions with improvisations make up the bulk of the works here as their collaboration takes a big step to greater depths of listening, timing, communicating and carefully choosing their expressions from each one’s broad musical experiences.

About their first fully improvised album “Injured”, Henk Jenssen of De Klarinet magazine enthusiastically mentioned the link he sees/hears to the famous “Het Trio” which was one of the most formative Dutch contemporary music groups for many decades. As a former student of Harry Sparnaay who’s one of the founders of Het Trio, Büyükberber of course was already aware of this link even when he asked Tüzün and McGowan for a session. Sparnaay was especially excited about this second session since contrabass clarinet and contrabass flute were also added to the rich sound pallet of this small group. Sadly, his loss shook the modern music community before this release could be completed.

Not Trio dedicates this album to the memory of Harry Sparnaay.

 

Multiple Wounds (2018)

Solo Piano

Multiple Wounds is my first solo piano album that is the result of eight hours of playing in a studio.

It is a total improvisation oscillating between jazz and electronic music as well as contemporary composition and Turkish music; a personal reflection on various esthetic forms and styles, threading continuously “in-between”; a sonic thinking situation on “what does 15 years of contemporary composing translate into,” or “where does improvisation extend beyond jazz?”.

Instead of playing inside the piano, staying on keys and  thinking “out loud” about my latest harmonic interests…

And the name of the album might refer to the wounds I suffered in the morning of the recording session from a taxi driver closing the window on my 4th and 5th finger and driving off. Or it might allude to an auto-immune disease. Or you might think to other kind of wounds that we suffer everyday lately.

Some wounds heal, some don’t. I choose to not let my wounds to postpone my life. That is why I did not postpone the recording; I take full responsibility for the dirty passages and the shortcomings that you might hear. Needless to say, I gladly take the responsibility for the moments that you might like.

Multiple Wounds is not “easy music”. What is easy in life? If my “thinking out loud” tires you, turn it off. Maybe one day, you might turn it on again if I convinced you enough that I love what I do. Or you move on. Life is short.

Mix: Tolga Tüzün

Mastering: Hakan Kurşun

Recording: Arda Keremoğlu ve Can Bora Genç

Tales of Angst, Numbness and Hypertension (2018)

In the following days of the recording session of my solo piano album “Multiple Wounds,” Çağlayan Yıldız, Can Kozlu and I recorded a trio album. We played nonstop for two days, sometimes around some structures that I proposed, sometimes in a total flow of consciousness. Produced by Oğuz Büyükberber, “Tales of Angst, Numbness and Hypertension” makes an appearance as an improvisatory album with Engin Recepoğulları who joined in as a guest in two tracks.

Even though the combo of piano, bass and drum is reminiscent of a classical jazz piano trio, “Tales of Angst, Numbness and Hypertension” is not a pianist album. It is more of a musical situation wherein three soloists listen to each other, sometimes speak at the same time and open spaces for each other via mutual interaction.

And the title: Although its references are clear for us, I leave to the agility of your imagination to make sense out of it. So is true for the music.

Tolga Tüzün: Piano

Çağlayan Yıldız: Electric Bass

Can Kozlu: Drums

Engin Recepoğulları: Soprano Saxophone

Mix: Tolga Tüzün

Mastering: Hakan Kurşun

Recording: Arda Keremoğlu ve Can Bora Genç

Çağlayan Yıldız plays with his own design Özgür Turan Bass.

 

injured_small

 

injured by NOT Trio

piano: tolga tüzün

flute & piccolo: ned mcgowan

soprano & bass clarinet: oğuz büyükberber

cover photo: peri sharpe
cover design: buket erkmen

İstanbul 2013

Tracks can be downloaded from Müzik Hayvanı

 

ttbco_front

 

Seeding

with Berke Can Ozcan

Available at:

 

TT-KE_front

Superimposed Circumstances

with Korhan Erel

Available at:

 

 

sonumut_small

SOnuMUT (2012)

 

electroacoustic works

01. L’esprit de l’escalier
02. Diaphanous Stones
03. Vulgaire Obscur
04. Plugged

Tracks can be downloaded from Müzik Hayvanı

 

 

 

periphery dis-site

 periphery (2009)

electroacoustic works for solo instrument and electronics

published by AK Müzik

01-my dear nightmares, sincerely yours

02-Metathesis

03-Along the Borderline: the Breath and the Gaze

04-Le Déchirement des Pétales

 

1-kapak

 

nix (2000)

1-Duman

2-Ret

3-Dalyan

4-Nardis

5-Takdim-i Mavi

6-Mavi

7-Zümrüd-ü Anka

8-Perisphere

9-Kaf Dağı

10-Süleyman’ın Sarayında Bir Gece

11-Nix

12-Yuvarlak Zar

13-Ballad No: 1

14-Bileşik Kaplar Teorisi

You can order Nix from Kalan Muzik.