ZİLAN YILDIZ
vocals, lavta & percussion (Kurdistan / Turkey)
Her first connection to music was thanks to her dengbej father. Her family comes from Erzurum but she was born and grew up in Istanbul. She lived in Istanbul until 2014. In 2014, she moved to Izmir for university, where she studied Mathematics for five years at Dokuz Eylul University. In Izmir, she began taking daf lessons from Sami Hosseini. She started her music studies in 2014 and joined the Ahura Rhythm Ensemble in 2015. At the end of 2016, she paused her music activities for academic and personal reasons but rejoined the Ahura Rhythm Ensemble in 2018. Currently she is doing her Masters in Codarts – Netherlands.
Since 2016, she has been giving daf and percussion lessons. Since 2019, she has led or assisted in three rhythm workshops in various organizations. While continuing her music with the Ahura Rhythm Ensemble, she also started other music projects. In 2019, she joined Neva Pangea, an ethnic music group, and in 2020, she joined Salut de Smyrne. In addition to her music group work, she also continued her individual work and production. In 2020 she was accepted by Ege University State Conservatory and graduated in 2024. Now, she lives in the Netherlands and she is a master’s student at Codarts and continues her active music career. In 2019, started working with her friend (Hatice Çetin) and on January 1, 2021, they released their first recordings called “Ba” with a music video on Youtube.
In 2019, she joined one of the Erasmus Plus projects and participated in a music workshop in Alcoutim, Portugal. The workshops lasted for 12 days and included activities such as dance, music, communication, and photography. At the end of the workshop, she performed daf solo at the event in Alcoutim de Castelo.
In 2020, besides the groups she was already part of, she participated as a guest musician in three projects. She played the def in Şahmeran Müzik Topluluğu song “Şah-ı Merdan”, in Babetna song “Khosha Hawraman”, and she sang and played the def in Ahmet Tirgil’s album “Bir+ Vol. 4” in the song “Sarı Gelin”.
In 2020, she participated in “Sala Fest (Online Competition Festival)” organized by Sala Music Turkey.
Also in 2020, she acted in the short dance film “The Bell Number 22” by Folkpedia.
During the 2020 pandemic, when musicians had to take a long break from giving concerts, she was invited twice to the online concert series organized by The Invisible City. On November 19, 2020, she performed with her brother and father, and in 2021, she performed two more concerts.
In 2021, she participated in the 8th Iran International Daf Festival.
In 2022, Sami Hosseini took part as a teacher at the Daf Training camp.
In the same year, in August, she went to Iran and met new musicians there. She had new music experiences in Tabriz and Sanandaj and took tombak lessons.
Since 2016, she has given concerts in many cities in Turkey with the Ahura Rhythm Ensemble. Also, in Izmir in 2022, she had the opportunity to work with Rastak Music Group, a world-famous Iranian music group. The Ahura & Rastak concert organized by Sami Hosseini was very popular. With Ahura Rhythm Ensemble in Istanbul(Şişli Kent Kültür Merkezi, Trump Sahne) – İzmir (İsmet İnönü Kültür Merkezi, Aşık Veysel Rekreasyon Konser Alani- Adnan Saygun Kültür Merkezi…) she had the chance to work with Cem Erdost İleri, Ali Tekbaş, Veka Aler, and Arslan Hazreti.
She also participated as a guest in the Anadolu Quartet concert in Izmir.