Biography

The innovative guitarist, composer an oud player Mahmoud Turkmani is considered as a renovator and bridge-builder between contemporary Western-classical and Arabic-traditional music. Mahmoud Turkmani who was born in 1964 in Northern Lebanon studied from 1984 to 1989 classical guitar and composition at the Moscow Academy for Music. After his graduation he continued his studies at Oscar Ghiglia (1989/90, Conservatory of Basle, Switzerland), Juan Carmona (1991/92, Flamenco Programme, Andalucia) und Stephan Schmidt (1994-97, Conservatory of Berne, Switzerland). Stephan Schmidt encouraged him to develop his own musical language. It took Mahmoud Turkmani several years to devise his own musical world which, based on his own multicultural background, found its unique form and expressiveness. At present, Mahmoud Turkmani teaches classical guitar and oud at the Conservatory of Berne. He is the founder of the guitar quartet “Ludus” which has issued a compact disc (“Nuqta”) with ENJA Records, Munich/Germany (www.enjarecords.com) in December 1999. Further discs were released by ENJA Records in 2002 /“Fayka”, 2004 /“Zakira” and 2008 /“Ya Sharr Mout”. Mahmoud Turkmani performs as a soloist (solo, duo, trio etc.) in various European cities and in Arab countries. Since 1994 Mahmoud Turkmani has composed works for well-known artists and ensembles such as Keyvan Chemirani, Barry Guy, Patricia Kopatchinskaya, Conrad Steinmann, Mariano Martin,Maya Homburger, Cahrlotte Hug, Matthias Ziegler, the Trio Aspekte, the Erato String Quartet, the Eos Guitar Quartet, the Berne Symphony Orchestra and the Cairo Symphony Orchestra. In the multimedial project “Ya Sharr Mout” Mahmoud Turkmani experiments with video, word and sound. Music Theatre for the text “Lilith's Return” by Joumana Haddad, Director: Frank Krug, Irina Schicketanz: Stage, Karnik Gregorian: video, Davide Camplani: choreography.
kremerata baltica and Gidon Kremer.

THE OCEAN IN A THIMBLE: audioplay on two Audio-CDs (recorded in 2011) with documentation in book form by Hildegard Elisabeth Keller.

New CD recording in 2012 with the ensemble: Chant 1540th.