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Mesut Özgen
Troubadour ()
$15.99
Classical guitarist Özgen presents a varied selection of music for the instrument in a series of compositions inspired by folk music, by an equally varied group of composers from around the world.
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From the record label:
In addition to being a prizewinner in the International Portland Guitar Competition, he has performed as featured soloist in the International Paco Peńa Guitar Festival in Cordoba, Spain and Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, and premiered new music for guitar at the Yale Guitar Festival and April in Santa Cruz: Contemporary Music Festival. Besides teaching, Özgen has been giving solo recitals regularly, writing solo, duo, and ensemble music for guitar and other instruments based on or influenced by traditional Turkish music.
Frequently collaborating with other composers, Özgen has long been a strong advocate of new music for guitar. Composers who have written solo, concerto, and various ensemble music for Özgen include Pablo Ortiz, Benjamin Verdery, Deepak Ram, Christopher Pratorius, Robert Strizich, Charles Nichols, Paul Nauert, Yalç¦n Tura, and David Cope.
Özgen has also a long-standing interest in bringing classical guitar music to a larger audience. His staged performances include “Folkie Classical Guitar,” presenting classical music based on American, Spanish, Turkish, Greek, and Argentinean folk cultures, with special stage design and costumes, as well as “Pick and Roll” for guitar ensemble by Ben Verdery, featuring a basketball player in dialogue with the ensemble and utilizing spatial elements in the hall. Since 2002, Özgen has been collaborating with a multidisciplinary artistic team from the film and digital media, theatre, and music departments at University of California Santa Cruz: Gustavo Vasquez, video, David Cuthbert, lighting, and Peter Elsea, computer. The team prepares visual accompaniments for each musical composition, comprising video, interactive computer images, lighting design, and stage choreography.
In the troubadour tradition, travelling musicians carried news and culture from one region to the other. For those of us not lucky enough to catch modern troubadour Mesut Özgen’s multi-sensory performances, his first solo release lets us in on the news. Özgen is widely known for making classical guitar accessible to a wide-range of music lovers. Troubadour is no exception, offering compositions inspired by Spanish, Turkish, American, Hungarian, Argentinean and Indian folk musics. Featuring compositions by Carlo Domeniconi, Anthony Newman, and the prolific Christopher Pratorius.
Mesut Özgen has performed and taught master classes throughout the United States, Spain, and Turkey and has been on the guitar faculty at the University of California, Santa Cruz since 1998. He was the first guitarist to be awarded the "Dean's Prize," which is the highest honorary prize of the Yale School of Music. He began playing guitar in 1981 while pursuing his study at the School of Medicine. During his seven years of medical practice, as a self-taught guitarist, he also played concerts and taught guitar in his native Turkey. After his two performances in the International Paco Peńa Guitar Festival in Cordoba, Spain in 1989 and 1990, he was invited to the U.S. by Benjamin Verdery to study with him at Yale University, School of Music. Özgen completed both his Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma at Yale. Later, Özgen studied with Professor Frank Koonce in the doctoral program at Arizona State University and worked as his teaching assistant between 1994 and 1998. He performed in master classes for many notable guitarists, such as John Williams, David Russell, Manuel Barrueco, and Leo Brouwer. He has also studied early music on guitar, lute, and Baroque guitar with Jaap Schroeder, Rosalyn Tureck, John Metz, and Robert Spencer.
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