Eren Gümrükçüoğlu

Duke University - Ph.D. 2020
Duke University - A.M. 2016
Istanbul Technical University - M.Sc. 2013
Berklee College of Music - B.M. 2004

Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Eren Gümrükçüoğlu is a composer and improviser of acoustic/electroacoustic music, a professional guitarist, a music technologist, and an educator. He attended the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC where he studied jazz guitar. Eren received his Bachelor of Music degree in Film Scoring and Jazz Composition at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He has shared the stage with musicians such as Dr. Billy Taylor, Aydin Esen, Bob Moses, and Grammy Award winners Shirley Horn, Ruslan Sirota, Ben Williams and many more. In 2004, he moved to Los Angeles and composed, arranged, performed and recorded music for ABC, WB and Lifetime TV networks. After his return in 2007 to Turkey, Eren worked as a studio and concert guitarist while also working as a producer on other artists’ albums. Following a performance of his orchestral arrangements in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw in 2008, he decided to return to academia and pursue his lifelong passion of composing music.

Eren currently serves as Assistant Professor of Composition at Florida State University. He holds Master’s degrees in composition from Istanbul Technical University and Duke University, and a PhD in composition from Duke University. His research is focused on the dynamics of interaction between electronics and live instruments, generative systems, the utilization of non-western elements in concert music, jazz improvisation, and genre divisions with an emphasis on listening practices. Performers of his music include Quince Ensemble, Semiosis Quartet, Ensemble Suono Giallo, JACK Quartet, New York Polyphony, Mivos Quartet, Conrad Tao, Reuben de Lautour, Ulrich Mertin, Deviant Septet, yMusic Ensemble, Naked Drum Project, UNC Wind Ensemble, Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra, Metropole Orkest among others.

Eren’s music dwells at the intersection of diverse musical styles. As a concert music composer with a strong jazz background, he refrains from creating a crass amalgam of genres but rather incorporates the idiosyncrasies, contours, shapes, rhythms and pacings of different styles into his music. Improvisation maintains its central role in all of Eren’s creative output. His compositions evoke the sense of spontaneity and elasticity that are central to musical development in jazz, while at the same time maintaining a rigorous approach to managing musical form and texture that is typical of much contemporary concert music. As he attempts to upend norms and provide context for diffusion of cultural barriers, Eren combines elements of Turkish folk music with the hallmarks of high-modernist concert music as well as utilizing culturally or politically charged materials to transform their meaning and broaden the scope of discussion that surrounds them.

Eren’s scores are published by Babel Scores, Paris.