Welcoming Renowned Visiting Artist Necati Çelik

Necati Çelik is the recipient of the prestigious Stanford Visiting Artist Fund, established in honor of Roberta Bowman Denning, which brings renowned artists to the university to engage with faculty and students in departments and programs across the campus. The Abbasi Program in Islamic studies is proud to be Mr. Celik's institutional home while at Stanford. Celik is globally considered to be the foremost living master ud (fretless lute) musician, improviser and composer. He will be supporting a course with Denise Gill, Associate Professor of ethnomusicology and of Islam and the arts, who is also a celebrated kanun (trapezoidal zither) player. Bringing an artist of Çelik’s skill level and international reputation  allows Stanford to present the best of Ottoman, Anatolian and Turkish music to Western audiences.

Commenting on his residency, Professor Gill notes: "Many of us at Stanford have already begun institutionally referring to Necati Çelik in his preferred manner as “Necati Hoca” (pronounced: Neh-JAH-tee HOH-jah), which means 'teacher Necati.' During the duration of his residency, Necati Hoca has an office on the second floor of Stanford's main music building, Braun Music Center: Braun 232A. Like his long-standing atölye in the heart of Kadiköy, Necati Hoca hopes that people come to or stop by at his office at Braun for lessons (chatting about Ottoman and Turkish musics, learning repertoire, microtonal/makam theory, rhythmic modal theory, improvisation/taksim, playing ud, talking through poetic texts, adopting your voice or instrument or unique compositional skills to his musical practices…in sum, meşk). But his office is also his main space for muhabbet. Please visit and enjoy conversing with this virtuosic musician and artist at your leisure. Necati Hoca is happy to field emails from anyone interested in reaching out to him during his residency. Please feel free to contact him directly at necatic [at] gmail.com (necatic[at]gmail[dot]com)."

During his time on campus, Çelik will co-create a Stanford Ottoman Music Ensemble and conduct workshops at the Markaz Resource Center. Most notably, he will perform a newly-written composition at the prestigious Bing Concert Hall with Stanford Live in a recital with Professor Denise Gill on Saturday, May 14th, at 7:30 PM, details of which are forthcoming.