Building a dream for Turkish classical music
Hatice Utkan Özden
Businessman Ahmet Selçuker’s venture in the music market opens up a new dimension for Turkish classical music. Selçuker innovates Turkish music, as he blends it with other genres of music, while maintaining its deep roots and emotional sounds.
Ahmet Selçuker is a passionate businessman with a dream. After returning from the United States, he has taken over his father’s business and has developed every aspect of it. As time passes by, his passion in music has become more important for him and he has dedicated himself to marketing Turkish classical music and building a dream for his passion. For him, music is the main reason to be exposed to new dimensions.
In Selçuker Group Companies, he deals with five different branches, property investment, tourism, risk consulting, agriculture and leasing. His latest enterprise is media and publishing, which he has established to reinvent Turkish classical music.
“Turkish music has deep roots covering many different genres of music. What I am trying to do is show these routes by blending them with other different music genres,” Selçuker said. He has dedicated himself to introducing Turkish music to a wider and younger audience.
The story behind this endeavor is long, however. Everything started when Selçuker Group Companies opened Selçuker Center, a new shopping center in Konya.
“I decided to publish a promotional CD for the opening of the shopping center. I contacted one of the best musicians I knew of, Vedat Çetinkaya,” he said.
Vedat Çetinkaya is a singer who has impressed Selçuker with his voice in a concert years ago. He asked Çetinkaya to sing on the promotional CD for the opening of the shopping center. The CD became Çetinkaya’s first personal record.
Along with this came a new era in Selçuker’s life. He started to think bigger and wider in terms of marketing the music he loves. Selçuker believes Turkish classical music is highly emotional music. He also believes he has good taste in music and knows a good melody when he hears one.
After Vedat Çetinaya’s album (made by Selçuker Media and Publishing), the businessman started a new effort to market Turkish music. So he said let’s blend everything and open a new dimension for Turkish music. He started to work with musicians and record a new CD full of new aspects, blending different kinds of music, combining universal codes and mixing them into existing codes. At the end of recording the first CD, he had tears in his eyes.
“What we have done differently is we have made Turkish classical music become perceived in a new way,” he said, adding that he avoided repetitions and brought percussion and rhythm to the forefront to make new music from existing music. Selçuker’s music knowledge has helped him a lot and he has somewhat acted as an arranger.
“I told the musicians and the arranger what I wanted and they understood me. As a result, we made great music,” he said. With this CD, he knocked on the door of EMI Music Company and signed a deal with them in November 2017.
For his next project, he decided to reach a younger generation. That’s when he decided to start a DJ contest.
“My aim was to mix classical Turkish music with EDM [electronic dance music] and I needed to collaborate with a DJ for that,” said Selçuker. Thus, the Infinite Bosphorus Project has been initiated. The CD, which is expected to hit the market at the end of February or the beginning of March, is a blend of Turkish classical music with electronic dance music mixed by famous DJs all around the world and Turkey. Once again, the records include Selçuker’s visionary approach to music. Each piece contains his excitement for music.
Speaking very highly of Turkish music, Selçuker said it should be played in Buddha Bar or in Miami or other famous clubs around the world. His enormous excitement for the project has gathered the best DJs in the world, such as DJ Ravin (Buddha Bar’s resident DJ). “We are building a dream,” he said, and in doing so, his positive attitude towards this project is reflected in every single exciting moment he expresses his love for music.
