Can Çakmur (pronounced Djahn Tchakmur) is the first prize winner of the 2018 Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, where he also won the Chamber Music Prize, and of the Scottish International Piano Competition in 2017. He has performed at venues such as the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Eindhoven Muziekgebouw, Tokyo Opera City, Salle Cortot in Paris and Wigmore Hall, as well as the most important concert halls in his homeland Turkey. 2019 saw his débuts with Japanese and European orchestras including the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sapporo and Osaka Symphony Orchestras and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and he headlined the closing concert of the Festa Summer at the MUZA Kawasaki Symphony Hall with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tadaaki Otaka. In December 2021 Çakmur performed a solo recital at the prestigious Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. Released in 2019, his début disc received top marks from magazines and websites including Diapason, ResMusica and Pizzicato. It also won Çakmur an International Classical Music Award (ICMA) in the Solo Instrument category. Can Çakmur is a dedicated chamber musician, and collaborates with the cellist Jamal Aliyev, the violinist Fenella Humphreys and the Borusan Quartet. An avid writer and speaker on music, he contributes to the Turkish music magazine Andante and often moderates his own concerts. Born in 1997 in Ankara, Can Çakmur began his music education with Leyla Bekensir and Ayşe Kaptan. In 2012, he was accepted to La Schola Cantorum in Paris to work with Marcella Crudeli, and gained his Diplôme de virtuosité with highest honours in 2014. He currently pursues his studies with Grigory Gruzman at the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar and continues to work privately with Diane Andersen in Belgium. Can Çakmur is part of the ‘G & S Pekinel Young Mu-sicians on the World Stages’ scholarship programme, supported by Tüpraş, and has been granted a grand piano to aid his studies.
