Ali Tolga Demirtaş
ABOUT
Ali Tolga was born in Ankara. His encounter with music has started soon after he was born, when his interest in the piano and oud at home has arisen. As soon as he received his first musical training from his father, he started to share the same stage with him at his very childhood in various events. Then he won as the 1. winner the Ankara Child Chorus of TRT (public television broadcasting company) exam opened by Ankara Radio, and acquired various fundamental trainings in this school, and graduated in 5 years. While, on one side, he was receiving Western music training, he was subjected to theoretical, procedural and repertoire training on Classical Turkish Music with his father. While learning his own music, he was caught with an interest in violin so as to perform this music. He studied violin with Onur Sosyal, an artist of Izmir Radio, and he worked as violinist in Turkish Art Music Youth Chorus of Izmir Radio. He engaged in various studies in various placed with several masters in his fast-progressing music life. He started special training in academic terms when he was 9, and he would perform easily any work of various pioneering composers in piano literature when he was 15. In addition to piano, by the age 17, he completed various basic trainings such as composition, orchestra and choir conducting, orchestration, harmony, theory, solfège, and he started to be interested in some other types than classical music, which he was working on up to then, and he engaged in studies with Yavuz Daridere, a famous trumpeter, and Tuna Otenel, a famous jazz pianist, about jazz music and its derivatives. In this period, he worked in various studies on the fields of arrangement, recording, directorship and music directing, and shared the stage with various people in almost all music types from keyboard music to Turkish music and Western music. He was involved in both the studio records and stage performances of master names of Turkish pop music. Has studied academically in Jazz Piano department of CODARTS Rotterdam Conservatory, and he also continued with his studio and stage performances with violin and keyboards. He studied high level of harmony and composition with Aydın Esen and studied on Sound Engineering Program in MIAM. In 2010 he awarded as 3rd in TBD-Halici 17. Computered Composition Contest.
He has worked both stage and studio with world-wide artists such as Sezen Aksu, Ajda Pekkan, Ozan Doğulu, Kenan Doğulu, İskender Paydaş, Ziynet Sali, Fettah Can, Halil Sezai, Ayhan Sicimoğlu, Volkan Öktem, Hüsnü Şenlendirici, Uğur Işılak, Della Miles, Şevval Sam,Erdem Kınay, Hüseyin Sermet, ENBE band etc.
On January 2016, he composed,arranged,recorded and mixed-mastered his first single 'Geri Dön' and after a while his first album 'Hadi Gülümse'. He played Istanbul, Akbank, Garanti, Eskişehir, İzmir, Bulgaria Eco Perelik Jazz Festivals. On july of 2017, he gave open-air solo concert performance at the greatest square of Toronto, Yonge-Dundas. He worked as a composer and an arranger in many social responsibilty projects such as “Tell Me My Pretty Mother” the song tells the dram of africian’s mothers. In 2018, Ali Tolga composed and performed oud and violin in world-wide music producer and dj KSHMR/Niles’ new album. He has ability to play as a virtuoso skill of level on violin,viola, cello, doublebass, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, saxophone, flute, ney, oud, cumbus, guitar, drums, percussions etc. He has released his first contemporary solo jazz piano album "Moments". The album ,includes six improvisation tracks.