Edition: I
Bio/Studies
Mehmet Can Özer was born in 1981. His professional career started when he was accepted to Bilkent University FMPA composition division with full scholarship. He’s studied composition and orchestral conducting with Bujor Hoinic. After graduating, he was accepted to the Conservatoire de Génève for electroacoustic and instrumental composition divisions. There he has worked with Michél Jarrell and Rainer Boesh. Later he’s studied in Zurich HMT with Gerald Bennett. In 2005 he moved to Turkey and took a job in Baskent University as a Lecturer.
Career
He took part in the Halici-Midi Composition Competition, Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition, received the Goethe Institute Artist Award in 2006 and SWR Experimental Studio Grant in 2008. He has performed in several international festivals such as Bourges (France), AudioArt (Poland), Remusica (Kosovo), Busan Biennale (Korea), Pyramidale (Germany), Acousmania (Romania), SMC (Greece), Generator (Switzerland), Electro-Globe (Belgium), Create (USA), EMUfest (Italy), Ankara International Music Festival (Turkey), Granada Festival (Spain), Estoril Festival (Portugal), DE:Sonanz (Macedonia) and Apparat (Denmark).
Apart from being commissioned at home, he received commissions from I.M.E.B. (France) and Musiques-Recherches (Belgium). In 2008, he was commissioned by Goethe Institute for Ernest Lubitsch’s silent movie “The Oyster Princess” and gave improvised concerts through Turkey.
In 2009, his first electroacoustic music CD in Turkey “Siyah Kalem’s Dance” has been released. In 2010, he has been commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (Vienna) for “The Morning Line” sound pavillon and by Visisonor Foundation (Amsterdam) for his “Siyah Kalem” project. Currently he is working on his software “Asure” and giving concerts with it. Mehmet Can Özer’s instrumental compositions also played in various places and he continues to write for both instruments and electronics.
Notes on the Musma Composition
Music and its cultural environment:
“Aşure” (pronounced as Ishuré) is a real time improvisational environment developed by Mehmet Can Özer. The project has different aspects such as composition, improvisation, software and hardware development, ethnomusicology, sociology, interaction between human and computer and the most important cultural exchange. Nowadays, we are facing difficulties when international relations are concerned. Lack of communication and understanding, we can only fight with “the other”. Consequently, we continue discriminating people. But Western and Eastern Cultures are as one and inseparable. Even geographically distant cultures share things. Those things are called “cultural entity”. This interdisciplinary project is going to focus on music and all the research and development process will follow the guidance of musical aims. The composer’s ideas around improvisational music, are modelled on stage. Basically the software/instrument is able to process any sound input with its own factors and can be controlled live or automated (using probability and randomness). Up to now, there are only few improvisation concerts occurred with “Aşure” in Turkey, Portugal and Kosovo. Additionally, a few traditional instruments have performed together with the composer on stage. With the supervision of playing experiences some modules have changed, modified or deleted. Rather than a closed software package, it can be evaluated as an open-ended and user interactive media.
