Kamran Ince

Young American Composer-in-Residence, 1992-1994

Kamran Ince, born in Montana, moved to Turkey with his family when he was six and began studying composition, cello and piano at the Ankara Conservatory at the age of ten.

He undertook his professional composition studies at the Izmir Conservatory with Muammer Sun, but returned to the United States to complete his undergraduate degree at the Oberlin College Conservatory and earned master's and doctoral degrees from the Eastman School of Music. His teachers have included David Burge, Joseph Schwantner, Christopher Rouse, Samuel Adler and Barbara Kolb.

Mr. Ince won a Rome Prize in Composition, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Rose Prize from the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the Lili Boulanger Memorial Prize. He has taught at the University of Michigan and served as the first Young American Composer-in-Residence with the California Symphony.

He is on the faculty of the University of Memphis, where he has taught composition, co-directed the University of Memphis Imagine New Music Festival, and co-founded the Echoes Ensemble. In addition to his continuing academic work at Memphis, Mr. Ince founded the Center for Advanced Research in Music at Istanbul Technical University, which he has directed since 1999.

Mr. Ince's music has been performed and commissioned by leading orchestras, ensembles and organizations in the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia and Turkey. His Waves of Talya was selected as one of the best chamber works of the 20th century by a living American composer by Chamber Music Magazine in June 2000. Concerts devoted to his music recently took place at the Holland Festival, the CBC Encounter Series (Toronto) and the Istanbul International Festival, and he received the Outstanding Achievement in the Arts Award from the Assembly of Turkish/American Associations of the United States in 1998.

To learn more, visit Mr. Ince's Website.