Since 2022 · Ankara, Türkiye
About the
festival
Who we are
An international celebration of the guitar
The International Ankara Guitar Festival brings together distinguished artists, educators, young musicians, students and guitar enthusiasts from Türkiye and around the world. Founded in 2022, it has grown into an important meeting point for the international guitar community in Ankara.
Each year the festival presents a diverse programme of concerts, masterclasses, workshops, talks, competitions and professional gatherings, creating opportunities for both artistic exchange and education. It welcomes participants and audiences from different countries and musical backgrounds, with a particular emphasis on meaningful connections between established artists and the next generation of guitarists.
Over the years the festival has hosted artists and participants from all over the world. With hundreds of applications each year, it continues to expand its international network and its role within the global guitar community.
Meet · Learn · Perform · Discover
More than a festival
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Learn
Perform
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Our vision
We believe that a festival is not only a series of performances, but a living space where musicians, ideas and cultures meet.
Organising institution
MÜZED
Music Educators Society of Türkiye
Kızılay – Ankara
The Music Educators Society (Müzik Eğitimcileri Derneği, MÜZED) was founded in Ankara on 5 February 1999. Its aim is to strengthen the professional, democratic, cultural and economic solidarity of music educators, to contribute to the development of music education, and to help complete and carry forward the music reform envisioned by Atatürk.
Anyone who has graduated from an institution that trains music educators can become a member, while music education students and artists devoted to music education can join as honorary members. Its members include teachers at every level of education, university faculty, retired music educators and colleagues working as performers, publishers and managers.
Headquartered in Ankara, MÜZED aims to open branches in cities and districts as its membership grows. The society believes that the challenges facing music education can best be solved when music educators — the true owners of the field — address them together, in an organised and direct way.
The people behind the festival
Festival team
Festival Committee
President of MÜZED
Uğur Alpagut
Prof. Dr.
Born in Ankara in 1962, Uğur Alpagut began his music education in 1980 at Marmara University’s Atatürk Faculty of Education, studying the violin with Cemalettin Göbelez and Saim Akçıl. He continued at Gazi University’s Music Education Department as a student of Prof. Dr. Ali Uçan, completing his master’s degree (1989), proficiency in art (1991) and doctorate (2001) there.
From 1988 to 1994 he taught music history and theory at Bilkent University’s Faculty of Music and Performing Arts, where he was also assistant director of the Music Preparatory School. In 1994 he joined Bolu Abant İzzet Baysal University, where he led the founding of the doctoral programme in music education, became professor in 2011 and headed the Department of Fine Arts Education from 2014 to 2017. His books include Kim Kapattı Şu Müziği? and Müzik Sorunlarına Bakışta Atatürk’ün İzleri (2010).
With Anadolu Güneşi, the ensemble he founded in 2003 with bağlama player Kemal Bilsel Sarısözen, he has given concerts in Türkiye and in countries including Pakistan, Malaysia, Hungary, North Macedonia, Australia, the United States, France, Germany, China and Canada. He chaired the Silk Road Music Conference series (2014–2017), was the first Turkish academic elected to the board of the International Society for Music Education (ISME, 2016–2020), and chaired the 33rd ISME World Conference in Baku (2018) and the ISME Istanbul Legacy Conference (2019). He is President of MÜZED – Music Educators Society of Türkiye, the festival’s organising institution.
General coordinator of SDV
İlker Deniz Başuğur
Assoc. Prof. Dr.
İlker Deniz Başuğur began his musical life in 1986 at the Armed Forces Military Music School and in 1989 entered the Hacettepe University Ankara State Conservatory, where he studied with leading Turkish artists and educators. He works as a conductor, composer and academic; as a composer he has written award-winning works, particularly for children’s and youth choirs.
He took part in organising the World Military Bands Festival (2003) and organised an international symposium in Ankara on music therapy against the negative effects of terrorism (2010). Since 2015 he has been the Türkiye coordinator of the World and European brass associations, and he was the organiser and music director of Ankara Brass Week, their first event in Türkiye. He has been invited to conduct abroad and appears as a guest conductor with orchestras in Türkiye, including the Trakya Chamber Orchestra. He teaches at Ankara Music and Fine Arts University and the Hacettepe University State Conservatory, and is General Coordinator of the Sabit Dağsuyu Foundation (SDV).
Coordination team
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