We make music, teach it, and build tools & environments that help others do the same

About Çağlayan Yıldız

Çağlayan Yıldız began making music before primary school and picked up the guitar at seventeen. After graduating from EU Medical School in 1990, he chose music over medicine — earning a full scholarship to Bilkent University's jazz program, where he studied alongside some of Turkey's finest young players. Through the 1990s he became a fixture of the Istanbul jazz, pop & world music scene, collaborating with artists from Oğuz Büyükberber to Sarp Maden, recording landmark albums like AZ and Trio Mrio, and touring with Tarkan. Two extended stays in India deepened his interest in Eastern philosophy and expanded his musical palette.

In 2000 he moved to the Netherlands, studying Jazz Guitar & Composition at the Amsterdam Conservatory — then completing Master's degrees in Classical Composition at Utrecht Conservatory and Electronic Music at Utrecht University. Back in Turkey, he completed all coursework for a PhD in Composition at İTÜ MİAM, while dividing his time between composing, performing, arranging, teaching, and writing — holding a faculty position at Istanbul Bilgi University, hosting music programs on TRT, writing columns for Gitar, Drum & Bass, and Jazz magazines, and contributing arrangements to many projects such as Axyz Ensemble or the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble.

In 2017 he founded Puja Music Productions in Antalya and took on the Music Directorship at The 251SOUL Bar at Akra Hotel, where he built the club's house band (playing 1200+ concerts) and Akra Big Band — culminating in a festival-closing performance alongside two-time Grammy winner Dee Dee Bridgewater in 2019. Across more than forty years, twenty albums, and countless collaborations, his work spans jazz, contemporary classical, electronic music, film scoring, orchestration and recently coding educational Apps.