Necdet Yaşar

Necdet Yaşar was born in Nizip, a small town near Gaziantep in 1930. He graduated from the School of Economy, Istanbul University in 1953. He started music playing bağlama. After listening to Mesut Cemil’s tanbur, Yaşar switched his instrument to tanbur when he was 20 years old. In University he participated in many chorus concerts which was directed by Nevzat Atlığ. Yaşar was appreciated by Mesut Cemil and entered the Istanbul Radio. Yaşar played tanbur in the Istanbul Radio Classic Turkish Music Chorus which was directed by Mesut Cemil between 1953 and 1963, and worked there until 1980. During working at the Istanbul Radio, Yaşar learned many things from Mesut Cemil. In 1958 he served as a tanbur player in the executive board of Istanbul Municipality Conservatory which was directed by Münir Nurettin Selçuk and worked until 1976. Yaşar then played tanbur in the Istanbul State Classical Turkish Music Chorus between 1976 and 1983. In 1988 Yaşar founded the Istanbul State Turkish Music Ensemble which belonged to Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism and directed it until 1995 when he retired. He played tanbur as a soloist or in a group in many foreign countries: United States, Canada, England, France, Holland, Belgium, Finland, South Korea and Israel. From 1972 to 1973 and 1980 to 81, Yaşar was a resident artist of the Program of Ethnomusicology at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he gave lectures on the makam system of Ottoman Classical Music. He was invited as a tanbur player to important congresses on musicology in Toronto University (1972), Seoul (1981), Durham University (1982), Columbia University (1983) and in Hong Kong (1998) and gave concerts to introduce Turkish Music. Yaşar also performed as a tanbur artist and an ambassador of Turkish Classical Music with small or large ensembles including his own "The Necdet Yaşar Ensemble" in Europe, East Asia and North America. In 1991, he was awarded the title of “State Artist” by the Turkish government. In 2009, Yaşar received Culture and Art Prize from the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism.