A few months ago, several of the North America TEN admins went to Turkey on a dizi fact finding mission and we had the pleasure of meeting with the charismatic and talented Yildiray Gurgen in his studio. This is part 3 of a three part interview with the famous Turkish composer of such Turkish series as Siyah Beyaz Ask, Vatanim Sensin, Cocuk and many more. Don’t forget to check out Parts 1 and 2, here and here.
In our last blogpost we went behind the curtain with Yildiray Gurgen. He told us about his creative process and what it takes to compose music for dizis. This time we asked him to tell us some stories about his experiences. Have you seen the Netflix movie Sadece Sen starring Ibrahim Celikkol and Belcim Bilgin? Well most people know that the soundtrack for the movie was composed by Yildiray Gurgen, but not many know that it was actually Gurgen who was responsible for bringing on the director, Hakan Yonat, for the movie as well. Listen to Gurgen tell the story of how it happened.
Yildiray told us that writing the soundtrack for Vatanim Sensin the internationally popular Turkish drama series was one of the most incredible experiences he’s had. The astounding, grand musical score for this series was written in only one week! Listen to Yildiray tell the story…
What about the pieces that were rejected? Did they sit on the shelf? Yildiray tells us how some of the pieces intended for one show were fitted to another show in record time. He also tells us about some of his current projects.
And finally we wanted to know what Yildiray wanted to be remembered for…
And with that we ended the more than two hour conversation with Yildiray Gurgen. We are eternally grateful to him for being generous with his time, and being frank and honest in his answers. From him we learned so much about Turkish productions, music and the process of composing. But most of all we learned that talent and fame can coexist with humility and substance.
Thank you Yildiray for sharing your insights and experiences with us and with your fans around the world.
We at North American TEN hope you’ve enjoyed listening to these stories as much as we enjoyed bringing them to you.
Contact yildiraygurgen.com
You can listen to Yildiray’s most recent musical scores in the popular new TV series Dogdugun Ev Kaderindir or to any of his beautiful musical scores in Soundcloud.
You can also listen to his music on YouTube and Spotify.
Copyright by North America TEN and Ibrahim Celikkol North America