JEF GIANSILY QUARTET
March, 15 Monday, Ahmed Adnan Saygun Arts Center, 08.30 pm
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Jef
Giansily, Piano
Engin Recepoğulları, Saxophone
Kağan Yıldız, Bass
Ferit Odman, Drums
The music of this quartet is centered around Jef Giansily’s compositions. It takes its influences from the diverse forms of expression that jazz has been generating until now. Dominated by the double bass - piano exchange and drummer Ferit Odman’s dynamic approach, changing moods, stretching tempos within a song are some of the characteristics of this music, where lyricism and sensitivity are given a central place.
Jef Giansily (b.1980) is a French piano player who currently resides in Istanbul. Upon finding himself dancing to the sound of the dishwasher at the age of one and listening to his father’s records until they were worn thin, music has been at the center of his preoccupation since then. In 2003 he graduated from the Bill Evans Piano Academy of Paris under the direction of Bernard Maury with a specialization in jazz pedagogy. The same year, he started performing regularly in a prestigious jazz club in Istanbul, where he accompanied visiting American soloists for three years. As a leader of his trio and other combos, he has been performing in several jazz festivals of Europe and Turkey, such as North Sea Jazz Festival, Bratislava Jazz Days, Izmir & Ankara Jazz Fest., and others. In the winter of 2009, he recorded his first solo album with Kağan Yıldız & Ferit Odman entitled Sketches, which offers a set of original compositions by the pianist and a tribute to Martial Solal, an emblematic figure of jazz in his home country. The album is released on the label Circle, which Giansily founded to capture encounters between improvising musicians of varied horizons. He is currently a piano and music theory teacher in E.F.M.I., the francophone music school of Istanbul, based in the French Cultural Center.
Engin Recepoğulları (b.1980) is a saxophone player from Istanbul. After starting his music education with Omur Gidel in Izmir, he continued studying with notable jazz musicians such as Ricky Ford, J.D Allen, Claudio Fasoli and Pietro Tonolo. He won a full scholarship to attend the Siena Jazz Semineri in 2006 and another one for the 2007 workshops. He participated in many jazz festivals around the country with Logos Jazz Quartet and is currently playing with important musicians from the Turkish Jazz scene such as Ozan Musluoglu, Cem Aksel, Jef Giansily, Alp Ersonmez, Sarp Maden, Önder Focan, Kerem Görsev and Baki Duyarlar. Engin Recepoğulları is a member of the TRT Jazz Orchestra and Istanbul Superband.
Kağan Yıldız (1980) started his music studies with his uncle Orhan Akıncı, a music teacher at the age of nine. In 1991, he entered Mimar Sinan University State Conservatory where he chose to learn double bass. He continued his education with Engin Babahan until his graduation in 2002 from the same conservatory. As an active classical musician, Kağan has been playing with several ensembles such as Istanbul and Bursa State Symphony Orchestras, Akbank and Istanbul Chamber Orchestras, Şişli Municipality and CRR Symphony Orchestras, Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra. As a jazz musician, he has shared the stage with Kerem Görsev, Tüna Ötenel, Imer Demirer, Sibel Köse, Nilüfer Verdi, Sarp Maden, Kamil Özler, Ricky Ford, Allan Harris, Harvey Weinapel, Michel Borstlap, Giovanni Mazzarino, Freddie Cole, Mark Murpy, Dave Samuels, Dena De Rose or Lee Konitz to name few. We can hear Kağan Yıldız on numerous jazz records from the Turkish jazz scene.
Ferit Odman (b.1982) is an on-demand jazz drummer based in Istanbul. He started his music studies in Sweden as an AFS exchange student (1999), got a full scholarship to get his B.A. in music at Istanbul Bilgi University (2001), attended the School For Improvisation Workshop in NYC (2004), and was granted a Fulbright scholarship to augment his studies at William Paterson University (2006). He played two years in NYC, studied with jazz greats like Mulgrew Miller, Harold Mabern and Bill Goodwin and he holds a M.M. (Master of Music) degree in jazz performance. He became heavily entrenched in the Turkish jazz scene at a young age and recently performed and toured with Turkish pianist Kerem Görsev, French pianist Jean-François Giansily, guitarist Donovan Mixon, and trumpet players Maffy Falay & Lloyd Chisholm, while leading his own quintet and promoting his upcoming CD release “Nommo” that he recorded in New York with Vincent Herring, Brian Lynch, Burak Bedikyan and Peter Washington.