Ozan Aksoy / Music

Graduate Student Researcher
June 2009 – December 2011ozanaksoy@gmail.com

Ozan Aksoy is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Ethnomusicology at the Graduate Center, CUNY as a Chancellor’s Fellow. The roots of Ozan Aksoy’s dedication to music lies in his early childhood when his father began teaching him the art of bağlama (long-necked lute), an instrument of special symbolic importance for the Alevi minority in Turkey. He developed an interest in the multi-ethnic musical traditions of Turkey from the beginning of his music career in the Boğaziçi University Folklore Club, and became a member of the band Kardeş Türküler (Ballads of Fraternity) from 1995 to 2002 as an arranger and performer. Ozan has recorded five albums featuring two Kurdish Diaspora musicians (Ali Baran and Şexo), and given concerts all around Europe and Turkey with Ballads of Fraternity, performing the local music of Anatolia, the Balkans and Caucasus. He has pursued his enthusiasm for the different ethnic musical traditions of Turkey in various media, including producing a 2003 documentary called The “Other” Voices for a TV channel in Turkey. Ozan also studied in the Women’s Studies MA program at Istanbul University.