Muharrem Aslan

Muharrem Aslan is a Sydney-based singer, baglama virtuoso, composer, lyricist, arranger, and producer. He was born on January 15, 1977, in Ozcanli, a village in the Elbistan district of Kahramanmaras, Turkiye. He is the youngest in a family of four children. His father, Yusuf Aslan, and his mother, Hatun Aslan, were both farmers. In addition to farming, his father worked as a foreman in various parts of Anatolia. Muharrem Aslan grew up in Ozcanli and went to Istiklal Primary School in Elbistan. He later attended Mukrimin Halil High School but would return to the village during school holidays to help with family chores. His first encounter with a musical instrument was at the age of six when his father brought home a baglama after working at the Afsin-Elbistan Thermal Power Plant. However, until he was twelve, Muharrem showed little interest in playing the instrument. At the age of twelve, he spent any free time he had learning to play the instrument and sang folk songs accompanied by his beloved baglama. After completing school in Elbistan around 1994, he moved to Istanbul to study Geodetic Engineering at Yildiz Technical University. During his university years he decided to dedicate more time to playing music—it was his abiding love and interest. He therefore undertook study in theory and voice at the Fine Arts Department at the same university. In 2001 Muharrem migrated to Sydney, Australia. He met many musicians and started collaborating with them. This led to many performances at various festivals and events. He composed his first composition, ‘Gule Nisan’ (2004), while in Sydney. This song became the title of his first album. In 2005 Muharrem returned to Turkiye and released the album ‘Gule Nisan’ in 2007. The album consisted of eleven tracks. It includes both original compositions as well as instrumental works from various regions of Anatolia. In 2009 Muharrem prepared his first solo vocal album, ‘Yedi İklim’. This album, which was written while he was living in Elbistan, consists of ten tracks. It was released the same year. At this time, Muharrem embarked on performing his own compositions for the first time. In 2010, he produced a third album, ‘Tutsak Sevdalar’, in Istanbul. It was released the next year. The song ‘Gelmez Oldun’ from this album has reached millions of listeners and entered the charts on Spotify, Apple Music, Shazam and YouTube Music. Yet it became known as ‘Ben Gönlümü Sana Verdim’; therefore, in 2021 the name of the track was changed on all platforms. In 2015 Muharrem decided to return to Sydney. In 2016, he completed a Diploma of Music Industry at Nirimba TAFE. In 2017, he started a Bachelor of Music (Honours) degree at the University of NSW. In 2018, he prepared and released the album ‘Sustum’. This album, which consists of seventeen tracks, features the poems of five famous writers: Hasan Hüseyin Korkmazgil, Nazım Hikmet Ran, Sabahattin Ali, Özdemir Asaf and Cemal Süreya. In April 2019, Muharrem released two albums at the same time, ‘İklimsiz Acılar’ and ‘Buluşmalar’. The album ‘İklimsiz Acılar’ consists of ten compositions in his characteristic style. The musical arrangements are notable for their large orchestrations and complexity. At this time Muharrem worked with ‘Rose of April’ and the ‘UNSW Jazz Orchestra’ culminating in the album ‘Buluşmalar’. He collaborated with ‘Rose of April’ on the composition ‘Tale of a Platonic Love/ Platonik Bir Aşk Masalı’. This piece told a story through music and words. The composition ‘Koçgiri Düz Halayı’ was arranged in jazz style and performed with the UNSW Jazz Orchestra. In December of the same year, Muharrem released the album ‘Anadolu Resitali’. Highlighting the sounds of both the baglama and the axe-saz (balta-saz), this album consists of ten traditional folk songs from various regions of Anatolia. 2020 proved to be the most productive period in Muharrem Aslan’s musical career. Beginning in February, Muharrem composed and produced a musical story album with the ‘Rose of April’. The album, titled ‘The Legend of Ali Lake Mountain / Ali Göl Dağı Efsanesi’, was recorded in Sydney and based on a true story that took place around Nurhak Mountain in Anatolia in the eighteenth century. The next album he released was ‘Buluşmalar Vol.2’. This album, recorded in Sydney in April, was the culmination of a collaboration between Muharrem and eleven Australian musicians. The album has thirteen compositions. Many are duets written for the baglama and twelve different instruments, Western and non-Western. Muharrem also composed a piece about the climate crisis called ‘Climate’. This was performed by Muharrem on the baglama and the UNSW Classical Guitar Ensemble. A song with English lyrics was also included on the album. Later in the year, in August, Muharrem released the album ‘Ağlamakla Gülmek Arasında’. This album was produced in Sydney and consists of fifteen pieces composed and arranged in Muharrem’s original orchestral style. On top of composing, producing and releasing four albums in 2020, Muharrem prepared an Honours thesis. In this thesis, he develops a new playing technique for the baglama, what he calls ‘fourtemolo’. To accompany the university thesis, Muharrem composed a suite for solo baglama, which he titled ‘New Compositions for the Anatolian Baglama: Five Songs Without Words’. In 2021, Muharrem graduated from the University of New South Wales with a Bachelor of Music (Honours) and in the same year began a Master of Creative Music Therapy at Western Sydney University. In 2021, Muharrem prepared an album of fifteen compositions called ‘Bırakılan Mektup’. The large orchestral arrangements of this album, accompany the sounds of the baglama playing the fourtemolo technique for the first time. Subsequently, the album ‘Fourtemolo’, which consists of ten compositions, was released in the first days of 2022. This album, featuring Muharrem alone singing and playing the baglama, showcases the fourtemolo playing technique. All the compositions and lyrics on this album are original. Later, in August, Muharrem, released the tracks that accompanied his Honours thesis as ‘Five Songs Without Words’.