Episode 3.3 - Dr. Egemen Kesikli

We welcome Egemen Kesikli to our podcast for episode 3! Turkish composer, performer, and educator, Egemen is currently on faculty at the CU Boulder and Colorado State University. He is incredibly honest and vulnerable about his experiences in Turkey, the United States, and his mental journey toward musical self-acceptance. He brings up many questions without clear answers that composers, educators, and performers alike should hear!

To learn more about Egemen, visit the links below!

Egemen Kesikli: https://www.egemenkesikli.com/ https://www.libarts.colostate.edu/people/ekesikli/ 

Full Transcript

Carrie Blosser 0:00

Welcome to the third season of Diversify the Stand. Together we speak with a wide range of musicians who talk about topics that are important to them. I'm Carrie Blosser.

Ashley Killam 0:08

And I'm Ashley Killam. We're so excited to dive into talks with a whole bunch of guests this season. If you like following along and are a fan of our podcast, please leave us a five star rating and review. In episode three, we talk with Turkish composer, educator and performer Dr. Egemen Kesikli. Well, thank you so much for joining us on our podcast today.

Egemen Kesikli 0:30

It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Ashley Killam 0:32

We'd love to start off just by hearing a little bit about your musical journey and kind of what you currently do.

Egemen Kesikli 0:38

So my name is Egemen Kesikli, and I was born and raised in Turkey. And until 18 or so I was mostly a bar and wedding musician, just entertaining friends and family and I was doing lots of weddings. When I was in high school, one day, the Pekinel sisters who are these brilliant piano duo twins, who perform again, as duo, and they told me that I should consider studying music. And literally the same day, they just arranged these piano lessons and composition and conducting lessons and all that stuff. So it was like this one day kind of transformation. And before that, again, I did a lot of music. But it was never in this kind of like, quote, academic kind of mindset about which I'll talk in a little bit. But yeah, that's how my, I guess, my journey began. But like, what happened after that is I was I got so convinced that doing music was like never, or just doing music was a good idea. So I wanted to do double major. So like I was introduced to this, you know, like you can study music, it's, you know, total possibility. Anyway, I literally Googled schools and schools that offered double major programs that would give also a scholarship to international students. So I Googled a bunch of them. And I applied to St. Olaf, which was one of the schools and they got me in. And after St. Olaf, I got my masters at UT and doctorate at CU, graduated in 2017. And between 2016 and 2018, I just taught at a bunch of high schools and middle schools. And since 2018, I teach theory at Colorado State University. And I also run the composition seminar at CU Boulder. And I'm the the production manager of Pendulum New Music. And I'm assisting Dr. Sokolowski there. So that's kind of like a quick review of my background. I guess.

Carrie Blosser 2:25

That's awesome. I guess we did overlap at CU Boulder for just, for a bit of time, which is like super cool that I love being able to like follow along with fellow classmates and like their careers, too, which is great.

Egemen Kesikli 2:38

Absolutely.

Carrie Blosser 2:39

I would love to hear more about your experiences, kind of in music, especially. You were talking a little bit about like, when you first started music in Turkey, and then kind of like how, how things were maybe different in terms of music education that you experienced in Turkey and versus the US. Any similar similarities or, or differences?

Egemen Kesikli 2:58

Yeah, I mean, I think like, Well, again, my music up to the age 16 was in general, pretty autodidactic. And my parents didn't really want me to study music. So like, my focus on music was mostly as hobby, and I was always passionate about it. And I loved Turkish pop, which I guess in comparison to American pop, is a lot more serious of a genre and it's musically based on the makam system and the folk music traditions, and it combines eurocentric and anatolian instruments. So it's kind of like this unique pop sound, that to this day, I'm still in love with. I also loved, again Turkish folk and Arabesque, and Arabesque because this I mean, both of these genres are like these, I guess eclectic traditions of Arabic, Anatolian Armenian, Kurdish, Mesopotamia, you name it, regions. But most of these genres were looked down upon in Turkey. And in fact, Turkish folk music wasn't really it really allowed to be studied until the 70s, I guess. There's decades of modernist policies in the arts in the westernization of Turkey. So to summarize, like a lot of musicians have to deal with this kind of like picking a side almost, like still today like, and therefore music has been a matter of class, I guess, just like anywhere else too. But I really wasn't aware of this when I was a kid when I was just like starting to discover Eurocentric music. And for a lot of musicians like me, like we were raised with the idea that music of our own culture is like really never enough. It has to be lifted to the level and sophistication of Western music, in quotes. So when I was 16, and I guess started reading music and understanding some theory, my whole thing was to abandon I guess my past my cultural. I wanted to be because I wanted to become the right kind of musician, if you will, and which of course caused like many years of self hating and various kinds of trauma and that kind of like hierarchy that you have to like study western music to understand real music wasn't as intense in the United States when I came here and in fact, I felt a lot more home at first for I guess being welcomed for liking things like Cessnock Su and or Han ganja by. Like, oddly, the the the Turkishness, and my identity immediately became my niche, which is a whole different conversation and but for me it was a unusual transition, like this tremendous amount of insecurity and self deprecation turned into like this more experience of like being welcome to lean in and explore the meaning and ramifications of the, I guess the question of cultural identity, which made me explore a lot more history philosophy and like concepts like orientalism, exoticism, the question of the "Turk," in quotes, etc. So anyway, like Turkish music is very deeply rooted, and it has his own theories and systems. It's like this vast phenomenon, but I guess due to various arts policies in the last century or so, what this music meant, means, and does, haven't been really studied it much in depth for composers, in particular, for academic purposes. Yes, maybe. But like how to raise composers? It wasn't a question that's been asked until recently. And there are yes, academic studies, but like, I did feel lonely at first, this questioning these this many forms of being a Turk or being a musician, existing in this vast world of like, everything existing, coexisting simultaneously. So studying and working in the US, I guess, allowed me to go back a little and get to discover the musician that I am.

Ashley Killam 6:32

It's really interesting, this trauma associated with it on how western music is like a pinnacle of music, which is not the case, obviously. And it's really great, you were able to mentally reframe that almost, and take that back.

Egemen Kesikli 6:46

It's the process though, like, like, the baggage of it is so massive like it, I am spending a lot more time thinking about it, and like figuring it out, and like not judging, because I mean, part of the academic life is, you know, there's also that you're constantly in it. And it's not a question that Western music is like this profound kind of thing. It's you don't even ask that question anymore. Because there's always this kind of reaction that is either positive or negative. But you see the progress in a sense that you don't question the very like THE question, if you know what I mean. So really, for me, figuring this out was a lot after graduating, it started in doctorate years and got a lot more intense after my 30s, I guess. So it's still a process that I'm still thinking about. And I mean, what I say today, probably, if I were to be interviewed, like in a week will probably be a little different, too.

Carrie Blosser 7:35

We're always evolving and it's such a process too. And I do think that like generally, generationally, like as we age, we're looking and trying to analyze where our like feelings come from, or where like, I know my big thing, like I'm a trumpet player, where is my tension being held? And why? So I'm sure that that is like, it translates to being a composer at a conductor and a pianist too.

Egemen Kesikli 7:58

Absolutely, absolutely,

Ashley Killam 7:59

I was reading your bio, and something I really loved is the amount of collaborations you've done with a variety of art forms. We were just talking with a recent gues- podcast guest about the importance of musical collaborations. And I'd love to hear kind of what your experience has been like to work with artists as a whole of kind of all kinds of mediums. And what's your favorite non musical art form to collaborate with?

Egemen Kesikli 8:26

I mean, I guess this will tie back to our earlier conversation too, but I like music isn't just like this oral phenomenon anymore. Like it's something that like we experience as culture, again as identity, as philosophy, poetry, as dance, and and I think this is huge for the Eurocentric-ly educated musical mindset that music is not something that we just listen to, or like we study as this academic form exists out of those spaces as well. But I think like my favorite non music form would be visual arts. Like it's a temporal form of art, I guess, similar to music, but it's also not. Like the work itself is the, it's not something that we have to like, either interpret or perform or listen to it in a given time, which I guess indicates some direct temporality. Music is a lot more temporal of a form of art. But I guess what I love about visual arts is that you create or I guess, artists creates their own kind of temporality. So it's the experience that is temporal not the art itself, if that makes any sense. And that to me, it's very exciting because it the art itself immediately questions like time perspective, the owner, like who is the artist who is the audience, the technique, and I think like, it allows collaboration, like allows the musician to find a place in that temporality to exist, like, what will the music do? Like is it gonna support the narrative? Is it just gonna provide atmosphere and let the the viewer step back? So to me, makes me ask a lot more questions than any other form of art. Because again, you have to find your purpose of the art and immediately start questioning again, what kind of art is music? Is it an oral form of art? Is it a visual form of art? Is it a combination? Is it like, simply a question of like culture? So I don't know, music itself, I think sometimes by its very nature, forgets some of these questions, we get super focused on the temporality of it. There's a beginning and there's an end, and forms of art that don't do that they just exist, and you create a temporality based on the message, or the intent of the art excite me a lot. I mean, like not to be to be too cliche. I like in general art that asks question at this point, like, I don't like state mental arts much anymore. Like I want the art to exist as a question. And I like finding my own answers in there and not sharing my own answers with anybody else. But like, I like that, that room that I can just exist in. And again, sometimes there will be answers. And sometimes it's just going to be this massive question mark. And that is what I want from art most of the time and, and I think this is for any musician, I mean, this might be helpful. This is not just for visual arts too, for musics that, as musicians, we don't understand, there's something magical about it, because our ears are so trained to understand, conceptualize, and get it, like that as our whole obsession as academics and music. And I love when I hear something and I have no idea what's going on. And like suddenly, I am back to like being maybe like eight and listening to music for the first time. And that magic is something that I miss so badly. And I believe that was one of the things that made me the musician I want to be and I needed, I need that to be back. And I think visual arts or again, non musical arts do that. Because you experienced that as art as question mark rather than period and exclamation marks, if that makes any sense. I like not getting it.

Carrie Blosser 11:47

Yeah, I was thinking about how like, we listen to things we're trained to like listen, and then categorize the music and fit it into like a time period.

Egemen Kesikli 11:55

Absolutely.

Carrie Blosser 11:55

Like "music history." I'm using air quotes, history like trains you to like listen, analyze to and then assign into like a kind of like a stereotypical category.

Egemen Kesikli 12:05

Absolutely, absolutely. And and there's something fun about like not being able to escape that either. I mean, like anytime we're teaching music appreciation or sharing something, the point is, because this art form is specifically, or this era of art form is so particularly structural, there is this admittance that everything will be inter relational. And that's fine. And I think that's like how we teach anything like, in other words, I think Eurocentric music, admits and embraces its own scaffolding. And that's fine. And in a way, it's very helpful, practical reasons to teach this particular genre of music, but like that, it's not just that is exciting. I love exploring forms that don't have that scaffolding method, like I mean, or forms of music that you just listen and, or like you work with someone and it doesn't matter to getting the theories of it, or that the music itself is the theory of it.

Ashley Killam 13:01

I'd love to hear you introduce it and maybe talk a little bit about the inspiration behind that composition.

Egemen Kesikli 13:08

Sure. So it's entitled Taksim. And Taksim is this improvisatory Prelude like opening for most pieces in the traditional Ottoman music. So if you have like this one piece, in a particular makam, makam indicating the system of like modes and, and scalar structures. One instrument would improvise to open the piece. And the thing about it because it's fully improvisatory is different in every single performance, like every toxin is going to be a little bit different. But for me, Taksim, in that particular piece is like, again, questioning the role of taksim, or what taksim is, and for me questioning myself as a Turkish artist. Because and this might be like another conversation this I could talk for, like hours and hours. But one of the questions that I've been I've been asking myself is the question of self-orientalizing. Like having been, having studied in the United States and having that mindset of like almost looking down on my on the self, and then lifting my spirits to the higher level, I think for the longest time there has been that weird, along with the insecurity this clash of the self. Like, am I a Turkish artist making turkish music? Am I just Egemen Kesikli, the composer who was influenced by some Turkish music? Am I writing music for the American audience who wants to hear oriental Turkish music? And those three questions that have been so important for me because I am discovering yeses for many of these questions. And I'm okay with those a lot more with asking and answering these questions, but like, I am a lot more interested now. pieces that ask that question. Is this a taksim really? Like I want my audience to come to that piece and ask me what a taksim is, or to ask me like what Turkish music is like? For me, that has been a big burden because my audience wanted me to write Turkish music but I don't myself know what Turkish music is. So the question of like, there is more than one Turkishness, there is more than one, this or that, to me, that piece is asking some of those questions and whether it's executing that well or not, I don't care much anymore. But if there's one specific thing that I explored in that piece is the anytime that we're trying to appropriate Turkish music, we go for scalar kind of elements like augmented seconds, and like the da da, da, da, da, kind of stuff. But I discovered recently that Turkish taksims in general are also very gestural, like the rhythmic gestural elements and like the types of ornamentations are usually undermined in comparison to the more kind of like scalar elements of Turkish music. So there is that so what that piece does is like this constant feeling like this nine minutes of opening, but by the time that you come to the ending, it's already done. So I like that as a like, So was this a Taksim? And might be a times might feel a little cheap because something that just askes the question might not be serving the intent of the art itself. But again, like that doesn't bother me as much anymore. Like I want my music to ask the question and then you can move on, I can move on with my life.

Carrie Blosser 20:17

You were saying about how like how your audience wants you to write Turkish music. Do you feel that like tokenistic aspect of being like commissioned to write?

Egemen Kesikli 20:25

Oh, absolutely. And it is difficult. I mean, like, I'm not sure how vulnerable I should get in this conversation. But I think like it's just the, the weight of being a foreigner, who is being the token guy for diversity sake is a very complicated thing. Because on the one hand, it's great, because you want to diversify your stand you want to, like, include like you want to, but then you put this weird, I think it was coincidental that I was coming from Turkish pop music background that I loved the music of this stuff. And that was part of my vocabulary. That being said, I don't want that connection to be what defines me, even if it does, define my music, like. My questions of cultural identity, and Turkishness is not necessarily musical or not. And it became that way because that's all I ended up answering, like explaining this Turkishness in my art is overwhelming. And therefore, it just made me question like, is this really Turkish? But if anything, that question allowed me to say like, Well, again, there isn't just one way to be Turkish, there isn't just one way to be this or that. So like, I allow my music to be my music, and if it is feeling Turkish? Great. But I don't want my audience to Oh, yeah, you really love those Turkish stuff in there, or like, come to me and commission me a piece because I am Turkish. But on the other hand, of course I do. Because I want my other colleagues who are not getting an opportunity simply because they are not American, or because they're not white. So this is this massive dilemma that I think a lot of composers and artists who are like me in academia are dealing with, like, do you let this assigned niche be who you are? Because yeah, it's gonna work probably, because people want to hear that kind of thing. And if it coincides with the art that you want to create, and this again, this job that other people implemented on you, if they happen to coincide fantastic, but if it's causing some serious issues, well, hello, that's okay, too. But then I think you can let the music, the art, and the artists itself, question those things. And I think, for me, the way that you get that is also by diversifying your stand. So either case, you should commission and you should have art, you should be inclusive in your canon, you should do that. But be aware of the ramifications like this is we're part of the progress and tokenization can be traumatizing for a lot of composers,

Ashley Killam 22:55

if you are trying to place this burden on whatever marginalized group you're working with. Like that is a lot, that is really heavy to, you know, have them put that energy into something that yeah, maybe not every single person wants to have every piece be kind of this harmful identity when that's not what they want to write about. You know, it is important to when we're thinking about commissioning, when we're thinking about building our repertoire and programming and things that we do program, great music, it just so happens, it doesn't have to be by the same type of person. But we want to make sure we like the music. Yes. And not just saying, Oh, I'm checking these boxes to make my program looked good.

Egemen Kesikli 23:37

Absolutely. And that checking the boxes thing is where it gets annoying, and almost like, it gets like this. Now that I did that I am good. I am diverse. I've done my part or like making sure that every concert is going to have one political piece, okay, I checked that box like, I would not want my colleagues to establish theirselves based on that. Like, if you don't want to be a political composer, you don't have to be just because, and it's hard to say that because it is also difficult to not be that because it's life. It's trauma, like when you have your wound, your wound becomes your art. But I would want artists to discover that wound in their art in their own way, not because they want to get a commission, but all in all, we also are trying to make it as composers, so it's so difficult, like and I think again, like here, speaking from my perspective, it coincided luckily enough for me that I wanted to. I mean, I wanted to be poli-sci major in college and I was for the first two years like these, like my art and my political stuff somehow coincided. But I also don't want that to be the something that other than my audience is proud because they like my music or because they like my perspective. Like there's this tremendous gain-thing, like search like benefiting from diversity that almost does more harm than good, but also like, I also, I mean, I don't want I don't want to be misunderstood. Like, I also completely understand the opposite, like the composer of an oppressed culture, whether it is like racial oppression, or gender identity, sexual identity oppression, that we're already struggling to exist in art simply for our identities. And if you are an artist whose identity matters to you, and that's what your art is, go for it. Like, it's not a like, you shouldn't do this, you should like, it's not a question of morality and ethics, because morality already doesn't exist. Like we're already trying to make it in there, despite our identity. So it's like, like, there is no judgement at all. There's, I think, only perspective I can provide there. And I think as our generation, we're gonna figure this out together.

Ashley Killam 25:43

Yeah, it's complicated and hard. And there's no right answer, and it's up to the individual.

Egemen Kesikli 25:48

Absolutely, absolutely. But don't let other people add to your suffering by just serving the art that they want to hear because it's masturbatory at some point for a lot of the audience like it, they want to hear the pain so that again, that box is also checked. Like if we hear about a Palestinian composer who suffered in Gaza, it feels like Okay, now the Palestinian and Israeli conflicts resolved by just hearing the perspective of Palestinian- No, it's still terrible. We're just lucky enough that we were able to hear one person's experience in art, whether it's good or not, because even the goodness and badness has nothing to do with like the quality of it, like how that person might even written the piece in the first place. Like what, did they have a frickin' pen? Like, so many things become part of the the equation here when we're talking about diversifying our stand? It's never as clear as, Yeah, I am including five female identifying composers. And I'm done. No, it starts right there as a problem. If anything, it gets a lot more complex after that moment, but it's a good start. You should still you know, if you have 10 pieces in your program, yeah, make sure that five of them, are not men, like that's still a good start. But that's just starting there.

Carrie Blosser 27:01

I think that's great advice. Since we were just talking about diversifying our stands, we'll ask you the question that we ask everyone who joins our podcast, and that is what is on your music stand this week? And how are you diversifying, diversifying your stand and it could be an actual music stand it or it could be a mental music stance? It is a very broad, broad question.

Egemen Kesikli 27:23

And I guess we briefly chatted about that already a little bit. But yeah, I'm a teacher for living. So I guess diversifying my Canon is like one of my biggest goals at this point. It's it's a lifelong project, because what we have is, OOOOOPH, to say the least, so So of course, more female identifying composers, more bipoc composers, more trans composers, composers of, you know, oppressed, marginalized sexual orientations, gender identities, but I think in general, less Euro-genetic, Eurocentric music in general, to talk about music. We still make like the mistake, I think of assuming that music theory is this like structural European phenomenon. And the the one that we do study is yes, very structural. And it's it is a European phenomenon. And yes, it does help to understand the music of a very limited time period of colonial Europe. But it's definitely not enough to for the musician of our age, and for the future, specifically, like I'm so for me, I'm learning a lot about the the music of my own culture, and I'm sharing it. And without the misconception, I guess that it needs to be taken to a higher level. That's like my biggest focus personally now. And there's music everywhere. And like, there's something we probably never thought about arts and, and music, and music in general, and the music of every culture like and that's what I was talking about earlier, like listening to a piece of music as an academic, and still not understanding it and having to develop your own music theory, or being smart and actually looking at the theory of that particular music. And we don't do that. And instead, we try to provide this generalized understanding of music theory and musicology and understanding music. Where even like the oral elements of music is very limited, like music is a lot more than that. So I guess diversifying our stand is not just a matter of like equity, and it is obviously but it's also more about self growth. And I guess being a better musician, better world citizen, understanding ourselves, life, everything in between. What's on my stand? Literally, I guess I've been for the past couple of months, really into the music of Dai Fujikura. And he's a Japanese contemporary composer and he just released his Kota concerto. And I think couple of days ago, they released his recent opera Armageddon, Armageddon that I am going to watch. I think it's going to be online in a couple of days on either on YouTube or in his webs- on his website. But yeah, Fujikura is the artists that I'm really into recently. I really another one would be Onur Turkmen, who's a Turkish composer, contemporary composer. I like composers who also like take these ottoman and classical Turkish idioms, but again, create music that is not necessarily trying to be Turkish music or trying to be contemporary music. It's just like this authentic to the artist, not authentic as in Turkish. And to me that also asks questions because you can totally tell the idioms, but it's not pretending to be anything. Like, I like music that swims in the vagueness of what is like, I think my favorite meme now, which is I like use everyday in my life is that you know, the, what is is this a pigeon meme? Like I like that like that the question of that, like, I replaced that, like, is this music? Is this Turkish? Is this blah? Like, that is how I live my life recently. I want that to be on the cover page of all of my music.

Ashley Killam 30:47

That's great.

Carrie Blosser 30:47

Well, thank you so much for joining us. This is a fantastic episode. I'm so excited to share this audience a lot. You are talking about a lot of really like complex and really important things and I so appreciate you sharing your perspective with us. And thanks

Egemen Kesikli 31:02

And thanks for letting me be vulnerable. It's like another project now for me.

Carrie Blosser 31:06

Thank you for listening to Diversify the Stand. To support us and our projects. Visit our website at diversifythestand.org.

Ashley Killam 31:13

And a huge shout out to Eris DeJarnett, who wrote the intro and outro music. The piece that we've been playing as Bored Games for two trumpets and fixed media, links to their website or in the podcast description.

Carrie Blosser 31:24

And as always, we ask our guests what's on your stand?