DESCRIPTION:
The concert opened with this beautiful self-composed prelude by Sinan Ayyildiz (https://www.facebook.com/SinanAyyildizOfficial), graduate of the Turkish State Music Conservatory in Istanbul and winner of the "best modern folk musician" title by the 2013 Troya Awards in Turkey.  Sinan plays a long-necked (sometimes double-necked) Turkish stringed instrument called the bağlama (pronounced BAH-le-mah) in a style called şelpe (pronounced SHEL-pee), which involves an overhand 8-finger tapping technique. He has made several recent appearances on Turkish national television. He has toured internationally with the groups Et-nika and Mesel, the latter project including kamancheh virtuoso Uğur Önür. Sinan also owns and operates Studio SARS in Istanbul. Look for his forthcoming solo album, Adaptation.  Audio from this track was mastered by Jonathan Russell at Masterfonics in Nashville, TN (http://www.masterfonics.com/engineer/jonathan-russell/).

Center stage footage by Aaron Hermes of Audio Telepathy (http://audiotelepathy.com/About.html).