Improvisational vocalist Saadet Türköz was born in Istanbul in 1961 to parents who were Kazakh refugees from her homeland, East Turkestan. She learned the rich oral and musical traditions of Central Asia from the elderly people of the Kazakh community in Istanbul. Their tales of their homeland and long journeys to Turkey later became an imaginative source for her improvisational singing. Another source has been the Koran she listened to as a child. Later her repertoire has widened to include improvised music and modern interpretations of Turkish and Kazakh music. In her work she combines past and future, traditional and contemporary, dream and reality. Through the years she developed her own style of singing, which is both expressive, physical, archaic and calm. In addition to solo performances, Türköz performs in duos, trios and larger free-improvising formations. Throughout her career she has worked in various video-, theater-, film-, dance- and literary Productions.

At the age of 20, she moved to Zürich, where she experienced the new worlds of free jazz and improvisation. These encounters prompted her to take an experimental and unbiased approach to her musical roots. She has performed solo and with other musicians at home and abroad, releasing her first album in 1994. Her collaborations include work with Okkyung Lee, William Parker, Carl Stone and Bobby McFerrin.

"Singer Saadet Türköz is a masterful improviser and collaborator, capable of stretching and extending her voice into previously-unheard forms. Those skills are on display on We Are Strong, a duo album with Swiss guitarist Beat Keller. Each of the seven tracks here seems at first to be led by Türköz, but repeat listens reveal that her mouth and throat sounds are constantly reacting to Keller’s equally wide range of plucks and slashes. At the same time, Türköz transforms the music of her past. Having grown up in East Turkestan (her family fled the Chinese government, landing in Istanbul), she molds Kazakh and Turkish songs into her unique style. This history adds another layer of compelling emotion to a record that never fails to grab attention. " – Marc Masters (Daily Bandcamp) The Best Experimental Music on Bandcamp: August 2021

"As a young girl growing up in cosmopolitan Istanbul, Türköz absorbed myriad musical styles - from Western classical music and radio-friendly American pop and rock to Arabesque and Turkish Folk: “When we were together, we sang not only in Kazakh songs but also Turkish songs. It’s community music. It has power and function. “She also developed an early love of Arabic while studying the Koran at Islamic summer school. “I like the sound.” She recalls. “We didn’t learn the meaning of the Arabic language but it sounded nice. The sound is beautiful.It’s music!” – Daniel Spicer (The Wire Magazine)

https://saadet.ch/
https://www.instagram.com/turkoz.saadet/

Chinabot is a platform and collective created to change the dialogue surrounding Asian music. Started in 2017, the multi-disciplinary label and network of Asian artists decided to cooperate on a new way to collect and promote exciting Asian music.

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