Tolga Yayalar’s music has been performed in the US, Europe, and Latin America by ensembles such as Le Nouvel Ensemble Modern, Ensemble FA, Ying Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, The Callithumpian Consort, Chamber Players of the League/ISCM, Orchestre National de Lorraine, Adorno Ensemble, Yesaroun Duo, Samual Z. Solomon, Benjamin Schwartz, Seda Roeder and Garth Knox and at festivals such as New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, 2nd Mediterranean Contemporary Music Days, La Ciudad de las Ideas, 1st Annual Symposium on Music in the 21st century at SFSU.
He is the recipient of awards and honors such as the Donald Aird Memorial prize, Adelbert Sprague composition prize, Blodgett String Quartet Composition prize, George Arthur Knight Prize, Millenium Chamber Players competition prize, and the League of Composers/ISCM composition award.
A native of Istanbul, Turkey, Tolga Yayalar played electric guitar in rock and jazz bands before taking up composition. Upon his encounter with the music of Webern, his first serious works incorporated serialism with jazz. Since then, texture and timbre have always been at the center of his music. To overcome the harmonic and sonic limitations of the tempered system, his music focuses on different systems of microtonality. While harmonic series constitute the harmonic focal point of his compositions, he also fuses parts of the eastern tuning systems with the Western tradition.
Tolga Yayalar holds degrees from Berklee College of Music and Istanbul Technical University and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2010. Tolga is currently on the faculty of composition at the Bilkent University.
