Biography

Ercüment Orkut was born in Istanbul/Turkey in 1984. He has attended Mimar Sinan Conservatory in 1993 and studied piano for 4 years. In 1997, he has also started to study composition and has perpetuated his education as two major fields of studies for 5 years. He has worked with Prof.Özkan Manav in between the years 2000 and 2005, and has graduated from M.S.U (Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University) State Conservatory "Composition and Conduction" department in 2005.

His works have been performed at M.S.U Auditorium and Italian Cultural Centre in years 2000, 2001 and 2004. He has participated in J.S.Bach Concerto for Four Pianos as a soloist which the Orchestra of M.S.U State Conservatory have also attended, at Cemal Resit Rey Concert Hall in 2001.

He has proceeded the jazz courses of Aydin Esen who is both a pianist and a composer in 2004. He achieved to be a finalist in "Halici Midi Competition of Computer Composing " in 2005. A piece of his; "3 Movements for Orchestra", has been performed by M.S.U State Conservatory Orchestra which was conducted by Babür Tongur at Mustafa Kemal Amphitheater placed in I.T.U Faculty of Mining in 2006.

He has worked with Dan Zemelman and Peter Horvath in the fields of jazz piano, solo piano techniques and piano trio for 3 months in San Francisco at the state of California, USA in 2007.

He represented Turkey in piano category and won the 2nd prize and has been chosen as "audience favorite" in "Nomme Jazz International Youth Competition Jazz Artists 2009".

He has completed his works in the field of "Composition and conduction" with Prof. Hasan Uçarsu at the level of graduate study in Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in same year.

He has shared the same stage with many prominent pop-stars and musicians of Turkey such as Sezen Aksu, Kenan Dogulu, Yasar, Sarp Maden, Önder Focan, Imer Demirer, Cem Aksel, Tamer Temel, Ferit Odman, Erkan Ogur, Volkan Öktem, Alper Yilmaz, Eylem Pelit, Cengiz Baysal, Senova Ülker, Turgut Alp Bekoglu, Sibel Köse, Çagil Kaya, Kagan Yildiz, Ediz Hafizoglu, as well as around the world such as Dave Allen, China Moses, Terell Stafford, Marius Neset, Luigi Grasso, Sean Nowell, Marko Djordevic, Art Hirahara, Kestutis Vaiginis, Robert Mehmet Ikiz, Médéric Collignon, Maciej Fortuna in many important organizations like Istanbul Jazz Festival, Akbank Jazz Festival, XJazz Berlin etc..

He and his team has won the 'best score for drama' award for 'Benim Için Üzülme' in Antalya Television Awards 2013.

His debut album 'Low Profile' has been released by Kalan Music on April 2015.

He has attended to the 46th Siena Jazz Workshops in Italy and worked with Matt Mitchell, Miguel Zenon, Aaron Parks, Stefano Battaglia, Franco D'Andrea for 2 weeks in 2016.

In 2017, he performed as the soloist on the Istanbul leg of 'La La Land in Concert' tour at Zorlu Center which music of the Oscar winner movie 'La La Land' has been performed live with symphony orchestras.

In the last days of 2018, his second studio album 'Persona' has been released by Linrecords.

Orkut is participating in prominent TV series, album recordings and concerts actively as a composer, arranger and performer.
- IMDb mini biography by: Ercüment Orkut