Vita
Murat Cakmaz is one of the few virtuoso musicians in Europe mastering a very special instrument: the ney, the traditional reed flute of the Sufi music, a musical style which is deeply rooted in humanism.
Cakmaz was born in Germany but originates from a Turkish musician family where he learned the oriental music culture very early. He learned the arabic (arabesque) style of playing the Ney from Behzat Tekbilek in Turkey, and expanded it with an education from Ömer Erdogdular in the traditional style of playing the ney, especially religious art music (sufi music) from the Ottoman era.
In addition to many solo performances and studio productions in the fields of sufi music, jazz, world music, Klezmer, Balkan music, classical music as well as film music and music therapy, he has been on the oriental music scene for many years, during which he has designed his own style that allows him to use the neys to produce a variety of sounds from both the Eastern and Western music world, giving him access to many international and Western world music projects.
He played concerts with many internationally popular artists on various stages in Turkey, Great Britain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, France, Austria, Sweden and Israel.
He performed many concerts as a solist with the great classical orchestras of Germany: the Wuppertal Symphonies (playing the "Istanbul Symphony" by Fazil Say), the Symphonieorchester Instrumentalverein Dortmund ("Ney Concerto" by Fazil Say), the Berlin Philharmonic ("Stabat Mater" by Karl Jenkins), the Hamburg Philharmonic and Kiel Philharmonic (both also "Stabat Mater"), Westphalian Chamber Philharmonic Gütersloh and many others.
Cakmaz has been the subject of several radio recordings and television performances of multiple of his projects, on various channels such as WDR, ARD, ZDF, SDR, BR, NDR, ARTE, Israel National Radio, TRT, BBC and many others.
In addition to his main instrument, the ney flute, he also sings and plays other flutes: the Armenian Duduk, the arabic Kawala and the traditional Zurna. He teaches the Ney for many years and gives workshops in "improvising within oriental Makam music".