Tolga Yayalar

Tolga Yayalar was born in 1973 in Istanbul and started music in high school by playing electric guitar in rock and jazz bands. After finishing high school, he studied Berklee College of Music in Boston. He has majored in jazz composition, studying mainly with Ken Pullig. He completed his masters at the Istanbul Technical University, Advanced Studies in Music program in 2003. He began his doctoral studies at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, and completed his Ph.D in composition in November 2010. At Harvard he worked with Bernard Rands, Julian Anderson, Brian Ferneyhough, Chaya Czernowin, Helmut Lachenmann and Joshua Fineberg.

He has been recipient of numerous awards and honors such as Donald Aird Memorial prize, Adelbert Sprague composition prize, Blodgett String Quartet Composition prize, George Arthur Knight Prize, Millenium Chamber Players competition prize, and the League of Composers/ISCM composition award. His music has been performed worldwide by ensembles such as Le Nouvel Ensemble Modern, Ensemble FA, Ying Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, The Callithumpian Consort, Platypus Ensemble, Hezarfen Ensemble, Chamber Players of the League/ISCM, Orchestre National de Lorraine, Adorno Ensemble, Yesaroun Duo, Samual Z. Solomon, Benjamin Schwartz, Seda Roeder and Garth Knox and at festivals such as Berliner Festspiele – MaerzMusik, BeethovenFest, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, 2nd Mediterranean Contemporary Music Days, La Ciudad de las Ideas, 1st Annual symposium on Music in the 21st century at SFSU.

Tolga Yayalar is currently Assistant Professor of Music at the Bilkent University where he is also the coordinator for the composition program.