Kamran N. İnce is a Turkish-American composer.

Life

Ince was born in Glendive, Montana

Montana

Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

, and at the age of six moved with his family to Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

. He entered the Ankara State Conservatory

Ankara State Conservatory

The Ankara State Conservatory, the first conservatory to be founded in the Republic of Turkey, was established in 1936 by a directive of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.- Notable attendees :* Paul Hindemith* Carl Ebert* Evelyn Baghtcheban* Samin Baghtcheban...

 at the age of ten, in 1971, where he began studying cello and piano, and took composition lessons with İlhan Baran. In 1977 Ince entered the İzmir University where he studied composition with Muammer Sun

Muammer Sun

Muammer Sun is a Turkish composer of classical music.-Biography:He entered the Military Band School in 1947 and the Ankara State Conservatory in 1953. He studied under Ahmet Adnan Saygun on composition, Hasan Ferit Alnar on conducting, Muzaffer Sarıözen on folk music, M.R...

, but returned to the United States in 1978. He enrolled at the Oberlin College

Oberlin College

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...

 in Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

 in 1980, earning a Bachelor of Music degree in 1982, and went on to complete his master’s and doctoral degrees from the Eastman School of Music

Eastman School of Music

The Eastman School of Music is a music conservatory located in Rochester, New York. The Eastman School is a professional school within the University of Rochester...

 in 1984 and 1987. His teachers there included David Burge

David Burge

David Burge is an American pianist, conductor and composer. As a performer, he is noted for championing contemporary pieces....

 (piano), Joseph Schwantner

Joseph Schwantner

Joseph C. Schwantner is a Pulitzer Prize winning American composer and educator and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was awarded the 1970 Charles Ives Prize....

, Christopher Rouse, Samuel Adler

Samuel Adler (composer)

Samuel Hans Adler is an American composer and conductor.-Biography:Adler was born to a Jewish family in Mannheim, Germany, the son of Hugo Chaim Adler, a cantor and composer, and Selma Adler. The family fled to the United States in 1939, where Hugo became the cantor of Temple Emanuel in...

 and Barbara Kolb

Barbara Kolb

Barbara Kolb is an American composer. Her music uses sound masses and often creates vertical structures through simultaneous rhythmic or melodic units . She was the first American woman composer to win the Prix de Rome. She received her B.M. and M.M...

 (composition).

Ince won a Prix de Rome

Rome Prize

The Rome Prize is an American award made annually by the American Academy in Rome, through a national competition, to 15 emerging artists and to 15 scholars The Rome Prize is an American award made annually by the American Academy in Rome, through a national competition, to 15 emerging artists...

 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1987, and the Lili Boulanger

Lili Boulanger

Lili Boulanger was a French composer, the younger sister of the noted composer and composition teacher Nadia Boulanger.-Early years:A Parisian-born child prodigy, who was good at piano...

 Memorial Prize in 1988. In 1990, he moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

 to become a visiting professor at the University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

, and in 1992 joined the faculty of the University of Memphis

University of Memphis

The University of Memphis is an American public research university located in the Normal Station neighborhood of Memphis, Tennessee and is the flagship public research university of the Tennessee Board of Regents system....

, where he teaches composition, co-directs the University of Memphis Imagine New Music Festival.
In addition, Kamran İnce founded the Center for Advanced research in Music at Istanbul Technical University

Istanbul Technical University

Istanbul Technical University is an international technical university located in Istanbul, Turkey. It is the world's third oldest technical university dedicated to engineering sciences as well as social sciences recently, and is one of the most prominent educational institutions in Turkey...

, which he has directed since 1999.

His music

Journalist Blair Dedrick described İnce’s music as

characterized . . . by its ability to pinpoint the sonorous strains present in the jagged dissonance of elements such as a smooth cello yearning suddenly broken by an incongruent spatter of drum beats.

His music has been described as post-minimalist, that is, it makes use of near repetition, tonal language, but avoiding traditional tonal functionality

Tonality

Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...

, and influence of world music

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

. Indeed, his Concerto for Orchestra, Turkish Instruments and Voices uses an actual Turkish ensemble mixed with Western instruments.

His musical palette tends toward large-scale works, mainly for orchestra or ensemble; he has also composed several smaller works for either solo instrument ( In Memoriam: 8/17/99 for piano ) or solo instrument and piano (Lines for clarinet and piano).

Although several of his works display this sudden movement between slow chord movements and the nattering of percussion and / or instruments, such as Flight Box (2001) or Hammer Music (1990), other pieces use a more consistent texture, such as the energetic F E S T for New Music Ensemble and Orchestra (1998) or the subdued Curve (1998).

Reception

A critic for the Los Angeles Times called him

that rare composer, able to sound connected with modern music and yet still seem exotic, Kamran Ince is a force on the cutting edge of contemporary composition, bridging the East and the West.

Orchestra

• Academica (1998)
• Before Infrared (1986)
• Cascade (1993)
• Concerto for Orchestra, Turkish Instruments (ney, kemence, 2 zurnas) and Voices (2002)
• Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1984)
• Deep Flight (1988)
• Domes (1993)
• Ebullient Shadows (1987)
• F E S T for New Music Ensemble and Orchestra (1998)
• Hot, Red, Cold, Vibrant (1992)
• Infrared Only (1985)
• Lipstick (1991)
• Plexus (1993)
• Remembering Lycia (1996)
• Symphony No. 1 "Castles in the Air" (1989)
• Symphony No. 2 "Fall of Constantinople" (1994)
• Symphony No. 3 "Siege of Vienna" (1995)
• Symphony No. 4 "Sardis" (2000)
• Symphony No. 5 "Galatasaray" (2005)
• Viper's Dance derived from Symphony No. 1, 1989 revised in 1993.

Large Ensemble

• Aphrodisiac (1997)
• Arches (1994)
• Evil Eye Deflector (1996)
• Flight Box (2001)
• Hammer Music (1990)
• In White (1999) Violin Concerto.
• Istathenople (2003)
• Love under Siege(1997)
• Night Passage (1992)
• One Last Dance (1991)
• Requiem Without Words (2004)
• Sonnet #395 (1991)
• Split (1998)
• Strange Stone (2004)
• Turquoise (1996)
• Turquoise/Strange Stone (2005)
• Waves of Talya (1989)

Small Ensemble (Chamber)

• Curve (1996)
• Drawings (2001)
• Fantasie of a Sudden Turtle (1990)
• Kaç ("Escape") (1983).
• Köcekce (1984) (After a Black Sea folk dance).
• Lines (1997)
• Matinees (1989)
• MKG Variations (1998) version for cello.
  • MKG Variations (1998) version for guitar.
• Tracing (1994)

Piano

• The Blue Journey (1982)
• Cross Scintillations (1986)
• In Memoriam: 8/17/99 (1999)
• Gates (2002)
• Kevin's Dream (1994)
• My Friend Mozart (1987)
• Sheherazade Alive (2003)
• An Unavoidable Obsession (1988)

Sources

• Chute, James. 2001. "Ince, Kamran". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
  
   and John Tyrrell
  John Tyrrell (professor of music)
  John Tyrrell was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in 1942. He studied at the universities of Cape Town, Oxford and Brno. In 2000 he was appointed Research Professor at Cardiff University....
  
  . London: Macmillan Publishers.

External links

• http://www.kamranince.com/index.htm
• http://www.eamdllc.com/composers/ince.asp
• http://www.schott-music.com/autoren/KomponistenAZ/show,15123.html