Donemus Webwinkel — Doğuduyal, Meliha

Meliha Doğuduyal is an Istanbul-born Turkish/Dutch composer, pianist and teacher.

Education: She began her musical studies at the age of three with her musician father. At the age of five, she enrolled in the Municipal Conservatory in Istanbul where she was trained as a concert pianist. After completing her lycée education, she entered the Piano and Theory /Composition Departments of the Istanbul State Conservatory, where she studied piano with Metin Öğüt, modal music with Adnan Saygun and composition with İlhan Usmanbaş (1977-1986). She earned her doctor of musical arts degree from the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University of Istanbul. From 1991 to 1993 she did a post-graduate work at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague under Theo Loevendie and participated in master classes taught by Louis Andriessen and Gilius van Bergeijk (electronic music). During this time, she also attended the jazz and free improvisation courses given by Arnold Dooyeweerd at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam.

Compositions / Professional Experience: Doğuduyal’s musical language is a synthesis of traditional and experimental approaches embraced a diversity of styles and practices. In her early works, she combined influences from the Balkans and the Middle East musical traditions. Since the beginning 2000s, she has focused more on creating music-based intercultural and interdisciplinary experimental works.
The compositions of Doğuduyal cover a variety of musical forms and genres. She has written pieces for piano solo, ensembles, orchestra and voice as well as electronic media. She has also collaborated with poets, visual artists, filmmakers and dancers on multimedia projects. Her music has been broadcast and performed in many European countries and presented at many festivals at home and abroad, including the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers (1997, 2001 Paris), and the ISCM World New Music Days (2009-Sweden and in 2014-Poland).
In 1993, she was an artist in residence at the Ankara New Music Festival with Moscow Modern Music Ensemble. In 2004, she attended the 17th International Music School Seminar in Sneek where her “String Quartet for young musicians” was chosen to represent the Netherlands. In 2007, she was a composer in residence at the Visby International Centre for Composers in Gotland, Sweden.
Doğuduyal has taught piano and music-theory lessons at conservatories and universities in Istanbul for many years, before moving to the Netherlands. Besides, her articles on music have appeared in several magazines and art journals. In 2016, her collected essays were published in a book, “From Music To Word”.
She has been living in Amsterdam since 1996, working as a freelance composer, pianist and teaching piano and music theory.