Biography

Pianist Zeynep Üçbaşaran was born in Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

, 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...

. She started her music studies at age four at the Istanbul Conservatory as one of the youngest ever to be admitted.

In 1987 Üçbaşaran started her studies in the Franz Liszt Academy of Music

Franz Liszt Academy of Music

The Franz Liszt Academy of Music is a concert hall and music conservatory in Budapest, Hungary, founded on November 14, 1875...

 in Budapest, where she worked with Prof. Zempléni Kornél, Prof. Katalin Nemes (pupil of Béla Bartók

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

), Balázs Kecskés, and Prof. István Lantos.

After obtaining her Teacher and Concert Artist Diploma in 1994, she continued her studies with Prof. Dr. Tibor Szász

Tibor Szász

Tibor Szász is a pianist and author of essays on musicological questions and performance practice related to Liszt, Mozart and Beethoven. Since 1993 Szász is Professor of Piano at the University of Music in Freiburg, Germany.-Education:...

 in Hochschule für Musik, Freiburg, Germany (University of Music Freiburg) and obtained her Diploma in Aufbaustudium I.

She has her advanced graduate degrees in Piano Performance from the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

, Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

: MA (2000), Doctor of Musical Arts (2004).

Üçbaşaran has recorded the compositions of Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

, Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

, Domenico Scarlatti

Domenico Scarlatti

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He is classified as a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical style...

, Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

, Ahmet Adnan Saygun

Ahmet Adnan Saygun

Ahmed Adnan Saygun was a Turkish composer, musicologist and writer on music. Ahmed Adnan Saygun is acknowledged as one of the most important 20th century composers in Turkish music history....

, and Robert Muczynski

Robert Muczynski

Robert Muczynski was a contemporary American composer. He was born in Chicago, Illinois. Muczynski studied composition with Alexander Tcherepnin at DePaul University in the late 1940s...

 for Eroica Classical Recordings.

Since 1996 she has been living in Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...

.

Performances

Zeynep Üçbaşaran has given solo recitals and concerts in Turkey, Egypt, Hungary, England, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Slovenia, Lithuania, and the United States in addition to several chamber music performances.

Her Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...

 debut in London was in November 2004.

Awards

Her awards include American Liszt Society Award, Rozsnyai Memorial Award, Ina Broida Award from UCSB, and USC Associates Music Merit Scholarship.

She is also a recipient of the MAA 2001 Aspen Summer Music Festival Scholarship, where she was selected to play in the distinguished artist Master Class of Leon Fleisher.

Üçbaşaran was a prize-winner in the 1996 and 2000 Los Angeles Liszt Competitions.

She was designated a "woman of distinction in the year 2003" by the Daughters of Atatürk organization in the US.

Recordings

She has recorded for Eroica Classical Recordings

• Santa Barbara LISZT Album, 2001 (Eroica JDT3092)
• Virtuoso SCHUBERT, 2002 (Eroica JDT3108)
• LISZT / Sonata in B Minor, 2003 (Eroica JDT3135)
• Scarlatti / Beethoven / Saygun / Bernstein / Muczynski, 2005 (Eroica JDT3223)
• W.A. Mozart, 2005 (Eroica JDT3222) Piano Sonata No. 14 (Mozart)
  Piano Sonata No. 14 (Mozart)
  The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K. 457, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was composed and completed in 1784, with the official date of completion recorded as October 14, 1784 in Mozart’s private catalogue of works. It was published in December of 1785 together with the Fantasy in C minor, K...
  
  
• W.A. Mozart, 2007 (Eroica JDT3311)
• Ahmet Adnan Saygun, 2008 (Naxos 8.570746)

External links

• Zeynep Üçbaşaran Web Site