Rectorate
Biography:
Rıdvan Aydınlı is a ney performer, vocalist, and researcher specializing in Ottoman/Turkish music. He holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from Boğaziçi University. His engagement with music began during his high school years with the ney, which he continued throughout his undergraduate studies at Boğaziçi University’s Turkish Music Club (BÜTMK), where he later served as president. During this period, he received ney instruction from Hakan Alvan and participated in the BÜTMK choir under the direction of Gönül Paçacı, performing both as an instrumentalist and vocalist. He conducted the same choir between 2017 and 2019. His musical training was further enriched by studying with prominent ney players such as Fikret Bertuğ, Ahmet Şahin, and Sadreddin Özçimi.
Aydınlı’s academic research focuses primarily on Karamanlidika sources of Ottoman/Turkish music. He has been conducting in-depth studies on Byzantine notation for over a decade, with the support of Panagiotis Neochoritis, Archon Protopsaltis of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of İstanbul. His formal academic journey in the field of musicology and ethnomusicology began with his M.A. thesis entitled “The usul concept in Karamanlidika sources of Ottoman/Turkish music,” completed in 2020 at the Department of Islamic History and Arts, Institute of Social Sciences, Marmara University.
Between 2019 and 2020, he was a visiting researcher at the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he worked with Dr. Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol on Byzantine notation and gave performances across various U.S. states. From 2020 to 2022, he pursued a second M.A. degree in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University (Connecticut, USA), where his research centered on the contextual performance of rhythmic cycles (usul). He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Musicology program at Istanbul University and serves as a lecturer at Boğaziçi University, Department of Fine Arts, where he teaches courses on Ottoman/Turkish music.
Aydınlı has participated in numerous international music projects, recordings, and publications. He performed as a ney player and vocalist on “Compositori alla corte ottomana” (Italy, 2013) with Ensemble Birûn, and on “Gülzâr-ı Vefâ (Garden of Fidelity)” (Turkey, 2014) with Lâmekân Ensemble. He also contributed as editor and performer to the book and album “Kosova İlâhileri” (Kosovo Hymns, Turkey, 2017), a collection of Sufi music from the Balkans. His subsequent recordings with Lâmekân Ensemble include “The Book of Lovers” (Belgium, 2017) and “Fragments des Cérémonies Soufies – L’Invitation à l’Extase” (Belgium, 2019). He has represented the ensemble as a performer at international makam festivals in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, earning third place in the vocal category at the 2015 Azerbaijan Mugham Festival.
In addition to his performance and academic work, Aydınlı has been involved in various archiving, digitization, and media projects. Between 2017 and 2019, he served as the coordinator of OMARŞİV, a project under the Ottoman Music Application and Research Center (OMAR), dedicated to the digitization of Ottoman music manuscripts. Since 2023, he has been leading the cataloging and digitization project of the music manuscript archive at the TTMFAV Ömer Tuğrul İnançer Library. In 2019, he co-produced a 26-episode TV program titled “Osmanlı’nın Kayıp Şarkıları” (The Lost Songs of the Ottoman Empire) for TRT Müzik, alongside Hasan Sevil and Hakan
