We are at Edirne Trakya University for the first one of the Akbank Jazz Festival on Campus concerts. It’s 2018. Evrencan Gündüz ve Uzaylılar are onstage. One of the&nbsp;Uzaylılar (“Aliens”) is Dilan Balkay. At one point, Evrencan leaves the stage to her, and Dilan starts playing the trumpet and singing simultaneously. Applause...Three years later. As the first two people to officially start off the beanie season, we are on the Kadıköy – Karaköy ferry. Our destination: Aposto’s office in Galata.I am excited to record somewhere outside of the HOOD Base for the first time in a long time, while Dilan is excited for her new album which she has just finished preparing. “I have never listened to less music in my life,” she says. There are many things she has to do as an independent artist from videos to Spotify canvases. Harun Tekin calls these “the musician’s job outside of music.”The reason she listens to less music in this period is that production creates more production. She wants to do more when she listens.<img src="https://images.aposto.com/2022/5/2/1656398800817.png" style="display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: center; width: 100%; max-width: 550px; border-style: none; position: relative; cursor: pointer; padding: 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box;" width="550" ratio="0.67" fr-original-style="display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: center; width: 100%; max-width: 550px;" fr-original-class="fr-draggable">Dilan Balkay in her home, in one of the corners where she gets inspired.<hr fr-original-style="" style="height: 0px; overflow: visible; border-bottom: none; clear: both; user-select: none; break-after: page; box-sizing: border-box;">The word “excitement” leads me back to the “Herkes Tek” (Each on their own) festival from January 2021. A festival where everybody performs on their own one after the other with minor set changes, and this time without an audience.Dilan awaits her turn. She is closer to the palpitations and sweat end of the excitement spectrum. From time to time, I share the same shortness of breath. For me, it is an exciting and beautiful performance. But she thinks she may never play live again.Music has the power to manifest the things you thought wouldn’t happen. Going on stage, running from city to city, concert to concert with people you love, presenting songs in which you open up to strangers, losing days and nights in the countless details that surround these songs, and peaking your head out of the deep waters you had dived into like a cormorant… It’s all part of the journey, the story.<img src="https://images.aposto.com/2022/5/2/1656398886823.png" style="display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: center; width: 100%; max-width: 550px; border-style: none; position: relative; cursor: pointer; padding: 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box;" width="550" ratio="0.67" fr-original-style="display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: center; width: 100%; max-width: 550px;" fr-original-class="fr-draggable">Dilan<hr fr-original-style="" style="height: 0px; overflow: visible; border-bottom: none; clear: both; user-select: none; break-after: page; box-sizing: border-box;">Now, for Dilan Balkay’s story that starts in Şile, passes through Taksim, Kadıköy, Datça, and countless stages, and arrives at her first album KUYU.Let our <a fr-original-style="" href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/39ctXvuzwk6zCiU4TJvCXT?si=5369395056b741d8&utm_source=aposto&nd=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(9, 9, 9); text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent; outline: none; cursor: pointer; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: auto; box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank">playlist</a>, along with songs from<a fr-original-style="" href="https://open.spotify.com/album/2sXUm96cSfH4ghTz8Fa7fc?si=gRUq3bGxT92IUurRcvlunQ&utm_source=aposto&nd=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(9, 9, 9); text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent; outline: none; cursor: pointer; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: auto; box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank">&nbsp;KUYU</a>, accompany you throughout the day.

Duende

You are invited to Dilan Balkay’s story that starts in Şile, passes through Taksim, Kadıköy, Datça, countless stages, and arrives at her first album KUYU.

On the Kadıköy – Karaköy ferry

In the streets of Şile:&nbsp;Lately, I have been reading about the influence of community centers and local music classes on London-based jazz musicians. Dilan’s childhood in Şile too carries the influence of Celadet Moralıgil Cultural Center.Of the cultural center, she says “Every child in Şile has tried an instrument here.” She was only 9 when she entered through its doors because the boy she liked was playing the trumpet. Even though it didn’t fit her dental structure, she insisted on this instrument to be with her friend. In fact, she says that for this reason, she played terribly for a while.In high school, when she moves to the city center of Istanbul, she leaves the trumpet behind. Until she finds out that her beloved music teacher Bülent Altaş has an unused trumpet in his home. Thanks to this coincidence that would make a person believe in faith, she keeps studying the trumpet. Atlaş directs her to improvisation.<img src="https://images.aposto.com/2022/5/2/1656399249327.png" style="display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: center; width: 100%; max-width: 550px; border-style: none; position: relative; cursor: pointer; padding: 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box;" width="550" ratio="0.67" fr-original-style="display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: center; width: 100%; max-width: 550px;" fr-original-class="fr-draggable"> Dilan, speaking of her musical journey.<hr fr-original-style="" style="height: 0px; overflow: visible; border-bottom: none; clear: both; user-select: none; break-after: page; box-sizing: border-box;">In the streets of Istanbul: She starts busking on a day when she cuts class and goes to Taksim. Dilan plays, friends and passers-by listen. She performs her repertoire from Arkadaşım Eşek to La Vie en Rose on Istiklal Street.She says of the street “You get your reaction immediately.” Some stay because they love the music, and some walk on by. Dilan sometimes meets people at her concerts who had previously watched her in the street. Later encounters turn into Farfara Istanbul band.Performances move to Kadıköy and Datça. In the summers, they run to those who are impatiently waiting for them. They ask “Where have you been, kids?” and the kids perform every night. She meets Evrencan Gündüz in Kadıköy while playing on the street. She later experiences her first serious stage performance with him.<img src="https://images.aposto.com/2022/5/2/1656399315789.png" style="display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: center; width: 100%; max-width: 550px; border-style: none; position: relative; cursor: pointer; padding: 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box;" width="550" ratio="0.67" fr-original-style="display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: center; width: 100%; max-width: 550px;" fr-original-class="fr-draggable">Dilan Balkay and Artemis Günebakanlı<hr fr-original-style="" style="height: 0px; overflow: visible; border-bottom: none; clear: both; user-select: none; break-after: page; box-sizing: border-box;">A step further despite herself: Dilan gets angry after a concert where Evrencan announces her name and asks her to play solo. There are times when she says “No, I shouldn’t play,” when she dreads going onstage. She finds the solution in working really hard.Aren’t we already used to the voice in our head telling us we can’t do things? A portion of our lives goes into learning to not listen to it, to tame it, to prove it wrong. For Dilan, music destroys these barriers one by one. After Evrencan Gündüz ve Uzaylılar, she joins Dolu Kadehi Ters Tut. Her calendar is now filled with practice, concerts, and recordings.<img src="https://images.aposto.com/2022/5/2/1656399374423.png" style="display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: center; width: 100%; max-width: 550px; border-style: none; position: relative; cursor: pointer; padding: 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box;" width="550" ratio="1.00" fr-original-style="display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: center; width: 100%; max-width: 550px;" fr-original-class="fr-draggable">Dilan Balkay, KUYU<hr fr-original-style="" style="height: 0px; overflow: visible; border-bottom: none; clear: both; user-select: none; break-after: page; box-sizing: border-box;">An album is an album:&nbsp;Other than her solo recordings which she has been sharing since 2019,&nbsp;Dilan Balkay has collaborated with Can Ozan, Dolu Kadehi Ters Tut, Cihangir Aslan. Her first solo album KUYU came out on October 15.Even though she says “In the era of Reels and TikTok, it is a serious request to expect someone to spend 30-35 minutes with you,” she says her inner voice wanted an album, not a single. Because “An album is an album. It creates much more beautiful of an environment to meet an artist.”She finds it encouraging that creating an album isn’t perceived as big of a job as it used to be pre-digitalization. As she continues her education at Istanbul Bilgi University Music Department, she lives with the presupposition that what she is doing today won’t satisfy her tomorrow. During our conversation, she is reminded of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” Not seeking perfection is among our main life lessons.<img src="https://images.aposto.com/2022/5/2/1656399422655.png" style="display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: center; width: 100%; max-width: 550px; border-style: none; position: relative; cursor: pointer; padding: 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box;" width="550" ratio="0.67" fr-original-style="display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: center; width: 100%; max-width: 550px;" fr-original-class="fr-draggable"> Dilan’s house, a corner with her instruments.<hr fr-original-style="" style="height: 0px; overflow: visible; border-bottom: none; clear: both; user-select: none; break-after: page; box-sizing: border-box;">Key:&nbsp;No matter how little music she says she listens to, the names of Jasmine Sullivan, Hiatus Kaiyote, and Anomalie come out of her mouth at once. She says that working with many people in Boğaziçi Youth Choir taught her adaptation and time management. She says the album that broadened her horizons and made her say “I want to do that” is Feist’s Metals.

trumpet ile ilgili hikayeler