Bio

Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu is a cellist, improviser, composer and artistic researcher from Istanbul, currently based in Berlin. Her work ranges from improvisation and experimental cello performances to electroacoustic compositions and installations. She is interested in reinterpreting specified musical genres and exploring beyond their traditional boundaries. She engages with the concept of play and its relation to artistic practices, as well as co-created and collaborative practices.

She has performed and curated various interdisciplinary, improvisatory, and experimental music projects both in Istanbul and internationally. A duo album with Fulya Ucanok, iKKi Duo’s “Nine Stage of Note Arriving” and “Wandering Rocks” was released in 2023 as a comprovisation and experimental project with cello, objects, piano and electronics. In 2021 with Klank.ist ensemble, released their album “V.Dialogues,” which was performed and composed by the ensemble members; Eda Er, Aslı Kobaner, Fulya Ucanok, Zeynep Ayse Hatipoglu. In 2020, with SAVT free improvisation trio consists from classical kemence, tanbur and cello (Merve Salgar and Elif Canfeza Gündüz) in Istanbul, they released “Birinci Hane” (First Grade/Home) album. Her solo electroacoustic composition, “MAERSK,” was included in the compilation album “String Layers” by 7k! Berlin records in 2020. Her compositions performed in contemporary music festivals such as Journay Of Sound Festival Turkey, Bilgi New Music Festival Istanbul, BEAST FEaST.

She was an artist in residence at Schieesslhaus Air, Kollnburg, Germany in 2023, Field Kitchen Academy Silence with the Consent of Sound in Berlin 2019 and One Beat Exchange Program, Istanbul in 2016. She studied as a cellist and composer in Eurogenetic* classical music and Turkish makam music at the Conservatory of Istanbul University and the State Conservatory for Turkish Music at the Istanbul Technical University (ITU TMDK). She completed her Master’s degree at  Music Theory and Composition at ITU TMDK, where she worked as a research and teaching assistant for seven years. She completed her Ph.D. in 2022, at the ITU Center for Advanced Studies in Music (MIAM) with her practice-based research titled “A practice-based research on musical improvisation : Collaborative Improvisation as a play”. She collaborates with artists, conducts creative workshops, and is a member of SAVT, Heya Sounds, Klank.ist Ensemble, iKKi Duo.