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Since graduating from the Berklee College of Music in 1996, Turkish pianist and composer Sila Cevikce Shaman has led a number of jazz ensembles. She writes and performs her own original compositions, and has also played as a member of many other jazz groups including Kim Bock Quartet, Spindle, Greenwich Blue, and Dan McMillion Groovin' High Big Band. She has performed with jazz greats Pacquito D'Rivera, Clay Jenkins, John Lamb, Tim Hagans, Billy Drummond, Rich Perry and Ari Hoenig.
In 2004, her debut album as a bandleader, titled "A New Abode",
was released on SteepleChase Records. Selected as an Album of the Week pick
by NPR's Jazz with Bob Parlocha, this recording had extensive airplay in the
US and Europe.
As a composer, her influences include not only benchmark jazz composers such
as Wayne Shorter, Charles Mingus, and Maria Schneider but also modern classical
composers like Bartok, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and Maxwell-Davis and the
indigenous music of her homeland Turkey. More recently, as a result of her
growing interest in modern classical music and its visual application, she
has been writing music for theater and film. Recent compositions include works
for the experimental theater company NaCl and a score for the short film "Catskill
Chainsaw Redemption" by Emmy winning writer J.R. Havlan of "The
Daily Show with Jon Stewart".
In 2005, Sila relocated to the tranquil life in Corvallis, Oregon from the
hustle and bustle of New York City and Boston. Currently, she is teaching
Jazz Improvisation and Composition at Oregon State University. Her recent
musical excursions include a poetry/jazz performance with the Oregon’s
Poet Laureate Lawson Inada and composing a musical written by John Frohnmayer
titled "Spin" that premiered at OSU in May 2008.
