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Erkan Oğur was born in Ankara in 1954. He spent his childhood in Elazığ, eastern Turkey, where he became interested in violin and the Turkish bağlama, and started to practice the instruments frequently. He graduated from high school in Elazığ, and then moved to study physics at the Faculty of Science in Ankara University from 1970 to 1973. As a result of encouragement to be a scientist by his father, he studied chemical engineering and in 1974, continued his education at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich for three years. He started playing guitar in 1973. Instead of being a scientist, he chose to be a musician. Since he needed detailed sounds from a guitar in order to obtain Turkish melodies, he modified his guitar and invented the fretless classical guitar in 1976.
In 1980, Oğur returned to Turkey and began studying at the State Conservatory of Istanbul Technical University. After his military service, he worked as an ud (lute) teacher. In the 1980’s he had live performances with Fikret Kızılok and Bülent Ortaçgil, where he contributed to scene with fretless guitar. In 1989, he went to the U.S. to work with numerous local Blues artists. He introduced fretless guitar into Blues. In 1994 Oğur released his first album in Germany called “Fretless”. In 1996 he released his first album in Turkey, "Bir Ömürlük Misafir (Guest for a Lifetime)", which was ranked the 4th in European lists. In the same year, he composed a soundtrack for the film “Eşkiya”. He has given concerts and participated in numerous festivals in Turkey and abroad. He works with Kemal Eroglu on technical improvements on bağlama, and continues performances with Fahir Atakoglu and Bülent Ortaçgil. In 2004 he played on Yansımalar′s album, Pervane ("Moth").
Oğur is a member of the Telvin trio, which mainly performs Turkish folk music in improvised jazz style, with İlkin Deniz and Turgut Alp Bekoglu. They released the album called "Telvin" in 2006. The soundtrack for the 2004 movie "Yazı Tura" by Uğur Yücel won two awards: the Golden Orange for Best Music at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival (2004) and the award for Best Music at the Ankara International Film Festival (2005).
Discography:
1982, Istanbul′da Bir Amerikalı
1983, Perdesiz Gitarda Arayışlar (small distribution cassette)
1989, Sis, Zülfü Livaneli’s film soundtrack
1991, The Other Side of Turkey (compilation, includes Oğur (Feuer und Eis) )
1994, Fretless (Feuer und Eis)
1996, Bir Ömürlük Misafir (reworked reissue of Fretless)
1997, Eşkiya (The Bandit), with Aşkın Arsunan, Yavuz Turgul for the film Eşkıya soundtrack
1998, Gülün Kokusu Vardı, with İsmail Hakkı Demircioğlu
1999, Hiç ("Nothing"), with Okan Murat Öztürk
2000, Anadolu Beşik, with İsmail Hakkı Demircioğlu
2001, Fuad, with Djivan Gasparyan
2003, Yazı Tura, Uğur Yücel’s film soundtrack
2004, Pervane ("Moth") by Yansımalar (studio album, Oğur on four tracks)
2006, Telvin (in Telvin trio)
2007, The Istanbul Connection
Reference: erkanogur.gen.tr; wikipedia.org; images.google.com.tr; kimkimdir.gen.tr; last.fm |
