Aktas Erdogan

Biography of Aktas ERDOGAN

Young promising musician/artist Aktas Fatih Erdogan was born in 1987 into a journalist family in Rotterdam. He moved to Istanbul at the age of 2 with his family. He had his first music lessons during his childhood from his mother who plays an accordion. He started his classical music education in 2004 at Kocaeli Art Academy under the guidance of Mr. Ozan Akyatan.

During his studies at Kocaeli Art Academy, he was a member of a world music ensemble, Vardiya. Through this group, he traveled to different parts of Europe and Turkey giving concerts.

His parents were arrested in 2006; therefore, he stopped his education in Kocaeli. He decided to continue his music education in the Netherlands. Erdogan was accepted to the Classical Guitar Department of Royal Conservatory of the Hague in 2008 for his bachelor study. He was a student of Enno Voorhorst. He also worked closely with Zoran Dukic of the same conservatory.

He was one of the six finalists at the national Dutch guitar competition in the Netherlands in 2009. He performed at the 6^th Dutch Fretless Guitar Festival in 2011 presenting his project named “Crossover”.

After completing his Bachelors’ degree, he continued working towards his Master’s degree with Enno Voorhorst between 2012 and 2014. During the summer of 2013 he was invited to the Camino Artes Festival. In addition to solo concerts, he and Enno Voorhorst played the world premiere of the duo Recuerdos del Camino of the Argentinean composer Jorge Morel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xoy9j2Ih7oE ). He continued to give solo concerts in Turkey and the Netherlands.

While working on his master’s degree at the Royal Conservatory, he also attended to the Royal Conservatory of Brussels for a year. There he was a jazz guitar student of Fabien Degryse.

During his music carrier he had taken lessons and master classes from well –known names like Aniello Desiderio, Goran Krivokapic, Fabio Zanon, Lorenzo Micheli, Wim Bronnenberg, Eef Albers, John Ruocco, and Rolf Delfos.

His graduation concert in 2014 included the guitar concerto of Villa-Lobos which was admired by his teachers. Enno Voorhorst expressed his feelings by saying “Many great ideas and such a warm musicality”.

He composed a jazz song called “Anne Gunaa” primarily for his imprisoned journalist mother and on behalf of other imprisoned journalists in the world in order to call attention of international community. Anne Gunaa was played by great jazz musicians, Erik Ineke, John Ruocco, Emrah Oguzturk, Abel Marcel and Steve Willem Zwannik. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKejz7ejA-Q )

At the moment young guitarist is working on his first album. He is playing his favorite composers and planning to finish this album in 2015.