Officers

Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol, president

Mehmet Sanlıkol came to the US in the year of 1993 when he won a scholarship to Berklee College of Music. In 1997, he founded the contemporary jazz ensemble AudioFact and later toured Mexico, Argentina, the USA and Europe. The same year, he received Berklee College of Music’s Clare Fischer Award and completed his degree in Jazz Composition and Film Scoring. In the year 2000 he graduated from New England Conservatory of Music with a Master’s Degree in Jazz Composition. In 2003 he taught in the theory and music history departments of New England Conservatory and in 2004 Mehmet completed his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Composition at the New England Conservatory.

In addition to a number of CDs and DVDs he released with DÜNYA Mehmet also released two CDs with AudioFact. He composed for, performed and toured with international stars and ensembles such as Tiger Okoshi, Bob Brookmeyer, Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez, Okay Temiz, Erkan Oğur, Yansımalar, Omar Faruk Tekbilek and The Boston Camerata at numerous prestigious International Music Festivals and venues such as the Blue Note Jazz club in New York. He is currently a faculty member at Emerson College and Brown University. Sanlıkol actively delivers papers and talks at academic conferences such as Sohbet-i Osmaniye series at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University. His book, entitled The Musician Mehters, about the organization and the music of the Ottoman Janissary Bands has been published during 2011 in English by The ISIS press and in Turkish by Yapı Kredi Yayınları.

For more information on Mr. Sanlıkol please visit his personal website.

Robert Labaree, vice president

Robert Labaree is an ethnomusicologist specializing in Turkish music and medieval European music. As a founding member of the EurAsia Ensemble since 1980, he has performed and taught Turkish classical music across the US. Beginning in 1985, Labaree collaborated with the instrument-maker Feridun Özgören to create a contemporary version of the Ottoman harp, çeng which disappeared from Turkish classical, folk, and religious music in early 18th century. His recordings with EurAsia Ensemble include Eski Dünya ile Sohbetler (Conversations with the Old World), Istanbul on the Charles, and Boston Sema. His solo CD Çengnağme appeared in Turkey in 2001 on the Kalan label. He has been a member of New England Conservatory’s Music History faculty since 1984, teaching a wide range of western and non-western repertoires, and is director of New England Conservatory’s Intercultural Institute, which he established in 1993.

Serap Kantarcı Sanlıkol, development

Serap Kantarcı got her B. A. degree in International Relations and American Literature from Bilkent University in 1994. In the year 1997 she got her Master’s degree in Public Administration from Ankara University Political Science Department (Mülkiye). Between the years of 1994 and 1997 she also worked as a political consultant in the Turkish Parliament and served on the International Affairs committee. She came to Boston in 1998 and won a scholarship in order to pursue her studies further at Suffolk University’s Political Science department. She got her second Master’s degree from Suffolk in 2000. During her studies Serap worked as a legislative intern at the Massachusetts State Senate. Starting in the year 2000 Serap started working at Harvard Business School as the Executive Education Program Coordinator. Currently Serap is teaching Public Policy courses at Suffolk University. In addition, she has been teaching language and grammar courses to adult classes at Orhan Gündüz Memorial School at MIT.