Guitar
Concert: Alla Turca

Wednesday
February 19, 2020
7:30 pm
WPAC Concert Hall

Buy Tickets
Masterclass

Tuesday
February 18, 2020
10:00 am -11:00 am
WPAC Concert Hall
Free Admission

Enroll as Student

Sunday
February 23, 2020
11:00 am – 12:00 pm
WPAC Recital Hall
Free Admission

2020 MIGF Festival Pass

is available to attend all festival events at a single reduced price:

Buy Festival Pass

Guitarist, composer, and teacher Bekir Kucukay is one of the foremost musicians in Turkey today. He is one of those talents who combines all these skills and exercises them at a very high level. Kucukay was born in 1958 in Ankara.

He started his musical life at the age of nine with mandolin. It was not until the age of sixteen, however, that he made his decision to devote his life to the guitar. Meeting Ozer Unal in 1976, the celebrated tenor-sax player of that period, was a turning point in his life as well as in his music. Influenced by Ozer Unal, not only did he become interested in Jazz, but he also devoted himself to classical guitar. In 1979, he graduated from Gazi University, Faculty of Music. Later he completed a Master’s Program at the University of Istanbul State Conservatory and went on to do a Doctorate at Gazi University.

In 1983, he was awarded a prize at a National Competition for Guitar Composition with his work “Monologue”. For his performances and recordings of Heitor Villa-Lobos music, Kucukay was awarded a medal which was given only 100 artists around the world by the Brazilian Government,to coincide with the 100th Anniversary Celebrations of the composer’s birth in 1987.

He created his own teaching method for guitar as an alternative to the traditional ones and in 1992,published his own method “A Beginner’s Method for Classical Guitar”. In 1995, he recorded an album of Turkish Ballads with Omer Yilmaz, tenor soloist from the Ankara State Opera. In 1999, he was given a prize by Mujdat Gezen Art Center.

Other than his radio broadcasts and appearing on television, he has participated in many festivals both in his native country and abroad. In addition to giving recitals, he has played all the well-known guitar concertos with Baskent, METU,  Mersin and Istanbul Chamber Orchestras, Bursa, Cukurova, Izmir, and Istanbul State Symphony Orchestras, Eskisehir Municipality, Dokuz Eylul University, TRNC and Presidential Symphony Orchestras. He has been a professor of guitar at the University of Istanbul State Conservatory since 1988.

Bekir Küçükay’s participation is co-sponsored by the Turkish Airlines and Turkish Consulate General in Miami.