Erdal Erzincan

Erdal Erzincan was born in Erzumrum in 1971, and at an early age became deeply interested in the region’s folk music. Introduced to the baglama, he moved to Istanbul in 1985 to take lessons at the Arif Sag Music School. While studying at the Istanbul Technical University in the late 1980s he began to research finger-picking approaches to playing the baglama (as opposed to the more common plectrum style).
His solo album “Tore” was released in 1994, the first of many successful discs, opening the way also for international performances. Erzincan, like Kalhor, is a traditionalist with a taste for adventure. In 1996 he and baglama master Arif Sag collaborated with the Köln Philharmonic, an experiment continued by Erzincan in 2004 with the Ambassade Orchester Wien, an ensemble of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Erdal Erzincan teaches at a music school that carries his name and also leads a Baglama Orchestra comprised of his students. In Turkey today he is widely regarded as the most outstanding exponent of the Anatolian baglama tradition.