Büşra Kayıkçı

“In a way, as a composer, I design a place, and the audience walks around in it and moves within its architecture.”

Büşra Kayıkçı grew up with music in her native Istanbul, started piano lessons at the age of nine, studied ballet, and also attended a weekend art school. However, she studied interior architecture and environmental design at university, then worked in the profession for three years. “Studying architecture gave me a new perspective on art,” she says – but ultimately she found the creative freedom she had been seeking all along in composition.

Inspired by modern classical composers like John Cage and Michael Nyman, in November 2020 she self-released the single 'Doğum' (Turkish for 'birth') and then her debut album 'Eskizler'. 

In 'Eskizler' Büşra Kayıkçı conceptualized her piano pieces like sketches – on the new album 'Places' she goes one step further: “During our studies we were taught to write a story before drawing the first line,” she recalls. “What kind of place will it be? Who will reside there? How long will people reside there? We wrote detailed texts that guided us.” Now, four years after her debut, the composer is turning the method around and capturing places in music that inspire her. “The pieces were written during the covid lockdowns,” she says. “I was locked up – imagining myself in places I longed to be.”

In her music she defines harmonies, melodies, themes and motifs, form and tonal material as modular set pieces in order to combine them, weigh them against each other, and bring them into balance. “I always compose at the piano,” Kayıkçı states. “And I only write down a piece when it is finished.”

Unlike on 'Eskizler', Kayıkçı uses industrial sound designs and electronic inflections on 'Places'

A unique chance to experience this exciting artist, who draws on influences from her everyday environment to create minimalist and modern classical compositions, in particular creating new piano sounds through manipulating the instrument in different ways.

Presented by 432 Presents and The Queen's Hall

Image credit: Seyma Tuna