Institutional Information:
Turkish Classical Music Conservatoire, Department Of Musicology, Department Of Musicology
WoS Research Areas:
Arts & Humanities (Ahci), Social Sciences (Soc)
Avesis Research Areas:
Social Sciences and Humanities
Metrics
Publication
5
Open Access
4
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Biography
Born in Rize in 1980, Saral is an academic, musician, and composer.
Receiving her first bachelor's degree from the Department of Building Education at Gazi University's Faculty of Technical Education, Saral transformed her interest in social activities into a talent based on folk dances and performed dance practices from various regions of the country. Additionally, she studied the dance cultures of the Balkans, Turkestan, and the Caucasus. She participated in numerous festivals and competitions, achieving distinctions. In the 2000s, she discovered her talent for music and began working in this field. She performed on the accordion. Besides Anatolian local music and Classical Turkish Music, she also developed an interest in various branches of Turkish music. This interest focused on the music of the Turkic World. She entered the music education sector, developing her skills in educational conducting and choir conducting, and has trained numerous students. She participated in music workshops, seminars, and workshops in Türkiye, received numerous certifications in dance, music, and pedagogy, and provided theoretical and practical training. Saral also participated in rafting competitions held in the country. He has been a referee in national and international competitions in the same field since 2009. In 2013, he began his second undergraduate education at the Gazi University Turkish Music State Conservatory, Department of Musicology. During his studies, he gave a comprehensive presentation titled "Bibliography Studies in Turkish Music." He completed his education, which he combined with his professional life, as top student in both the conservatory and his department. His undergraduate thesis is titled "Musical Analysis of the Horons of the Ardeşen Region." In 2019, he completed his master's degree at the Gazi University Institute of Fine Arts and became a Science Specialist in Turkish Music. During this specialization, he received guidance from Prof. Dr. Sevilay Çınar, Prof. Dr. Vasfi Hatipoğlu, and Dr. Barış Gürkan. During her master's degree, Saral expanded her undergraduate thesis by conducting compilation activities and transformed the results of her field research into a thesis titled "Singing Forms in the Musical Culture of the Ardeşen Region." One of the outputs of this work was an article titled "Epic Genre in Ardeşen Region Folk Music," co-authored with her thesis advisor, Prof. Dr. Burçin Uçaner Çifdalöz. That same year, she was accepted to the Musical Sciences doctoral program at the Institute of Music and Fine Arts at the University of Music and Fine Arts. During her doctoral studies, she published two articles: "The Appearance of Cultural Hybridization on Black Sea Popular Music" and "An Essay on the Communicative Aspect of Music within the Triangle of Jakobson, Peirce, and the Gestalt Approach." In the field of Musical Sciences, she studied with Prof. Dr. Hakkı Alper Maral, Prof. Dr. Okan Murat Öztürk, Prof. Dr. Abdullah Akat, Prof. Dr. Türker Eroğlu, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Serdar Erkan. The artist completed this process in 2025 with a thesis titled "Performance and Cultural Memory: Social Meanings in Horon Practices." Saral teaches courses on historical and contemporary musicology in the academy, performs nationally and internationally with the accordion and garmon instruments in the field of music performance, and appears in the digital music world with singles, albums, and music videos.
Contact
- erkan.saral@hbv.edu.tr
- Other Email
- saralerkan.53@gmail.com
- Web Page
- https://avesis.hacibayram.edu.tr/erkan.saral
- Mobile Phone
- +90 505 751 8204