My name is Alper Yilmaz. I am a bassist, composer, and arranger based in New York. I started playing guitar at the age of 10 and took electric bass as my main instrument in 1993. As a bassist, I performed regularly with a lot of jazz musicians in Turkey during 1993-1995 period, including the Tuna Ötenel and Janusz Szprot Orchestras. As a sideman, I also recorded with Tuna Ötenel in his 1995 record “Sometimes" from Uzelli Records.
During my studies at University of California, Davis for a Ph.D. in economics (yeah, right, it has nothing to do with music), I played with the UC Davis Jazz Band. In California, I also performed with saxophonists Mike McMullen and John Tchicai, as well as guitarist Dave Lynch and many other jazz musicians in Northern California.
I moved to New York in December 2000, and since then I have attended workshops by John Patitucci, and studied jazz music theory with Matthew Garrison. I also studied improvisation with Antonio Hart, and arrangement and composition with Michael Mossman at the Queens College Aaron Copland School of Music. These days, I am mostly working on Alper Yilmaz Project, composing music, and playing in venues in New York and Europe. My first solo album "Clashes" came out from Kayique Records in August 2007...
You can buy a copy of "Clashes" on my website at www.alperyilmaz.net/discography or cdbaby.com. You can also download the MP3's of the songs in the album from iTunes, digstation.com, and other digital music download/streaming sites.
