Ä°lhan UsmanbaÅŸ
Ilhan Usmanbaş ( born October 23, 1921 in Istanbul) is one of the leading composers of western classical music in Turkey.
Usmanbaş initially grew in Ayvalik on the coast of Asia Minor. When he was twelve years old, his brother gave him a cello on which he began to play an autodidact. After the family was withdrawn to Istanbul, he received serious cello lessons. His mathematics teacher, a music lover, advised him the career that he had planned for himself to give up: "We have enough engineers in Turkey. You should instead be a composer. "
After Usmanbaş had graduated from Galatasaray High School in Istanbul, he began studying at the Conservatory in Ankara. Among his teachers were the, Turkish Five ' ( Cemal Resit Rey, Ahmed Adnan Saygun, Hasan Ferid Alnar, Ulvi Cemal Erkin and Necil Kâzım Akses ) and David Zirkin. After completing his studies, he became a lecturer at the Istanbul Conservatory, which he headed from 1964. In 1974 he moved to the same position the Conservatory in Ankara.
1952 brought him a scholarship UNESCO in the U.S., where the pioneers of new and experimental music gained influence on him. In 1955 he received the Fromm Music Award and was nominated in 1971 to the Turkish state artist. The Sevda - Cenap -And- Music Foundation ( Sevda - Cenap And Müzik Vakfi ) gave the composer in 1993 her gold medal from the Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, he received an honorary doctorate. An award for his life's work was presented to him in 2004 at the 32nd International İstanbul Music Festival.
He composed almost 120 works, winning more international awards than any other Turkish composer. Usmanbaş received commissions from Koussevitzky Foundation in the U.S. and has won prizes at the Wieniawski Competition in Poland, at the International Composers' Tribune of UNESCO in Paris and the International Competition of ballet music in Switzerland.
Usmanbaş is an experimental composer from the second generation of Turkish composers whose ideas were opposite to those of their predecessor, Turkish Five '. His works are characterized by freedom in the formal design, with sound intensity for him a higher value than the melodic quality. It applies techniques of neoclassicism, aleatoric, the twelve-tone technique, serialism and minimalism.
In addition to his activities as a composer Usmanbaş also emerged as a music writer. He is married to the opera singer Atıfet Usmanbaş.