Mehmet Ali SANLIKOL (composer/pianist/musicologist/vocalist)

Mehmet started giving recitals at the age of 5. Until the year 1992, he constantly performed classical and contemporary music. Later on, he studied with Aydin Esen and won a scholarship to Berklee College of Music.
In his first year at Berklee, he was selected (among 3000 candidates) for Herb Pomeroy's special composition class. In 1996, Mr. Sanlikol toured Turkey as the ‘SANLIKOL GROUP’. In the following year, he founded the band AUDIOFACT with Onur Turkmen and toured Mexico, Argentina, the USA and Europe with Audio Fact. The same year, he received Berklee College of Music's Clare Fischer Award and completed his degree in Jazz Composition and Film Scoring. He also received a special award for one of his film scores and was voted best student of the 

year in Jazz Composition.

In the beginning of 1998, he was invited to New York to participate at the BMI Jazz Composer's Workshop. He toured Turkiye and Cyprus with Audio Fact and released the CD “Black Spot”. In the 

year 2000 he graduated from New England Conservatory of Music with a Master's Degree in Jazz Composition.

In the year 2001 Mr. Sanlikol, along touring with AudioFact, has started deepening his studies in Turkish music and since then he has performed as a singer and ud/duduk/zurna player in many concerts at venues such as; Harvard University, Northeastern University and New England Conservatory.

In the year 2002 Mehmet was commissioned to write a piece for PALS children’s chorus accompanied by Turkish instruments and a chamber orchestra. The piece, entitled ‘ERGENEKON’, was a big success. Boston Globe’s Richard Dyer wrote: “The music is colorful, fanciful, full of rhythmic life, and full of feeling. The multiculturalism is not touristy, but rather sophisticated, informed, internalized; Sanlikol is a citizen of the world”, “…and he (Sanlikol)is another who could play decisive role in music’s future in the world.”

In the year 2003 Mr. Sanlikol has released the second CD, entitled ‘Asitane’, with AudioFact and has taught in the theory and music history departments of New England Conservatory.

In the year 2004 Mehmet completed his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Composition at the New England Conservatory and founded the organization 'Dunya' based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Mr. Sanlikol has performed and toured with AudioFact, and Jazz stars such as Tiger Okoshi and Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez at numerous prestigious International Music Festivals, the Blue Note Jazz club in New York, Ryles Jazz club in Boston and etc. Recently, he is writing a book about the organization and the music of the Ottoman Janissary Bands.