Photo of Ersin Mıhçı
© Yaprak Melike Uyar

Dr. Yaprak Melike Uyar

Research associate

Fields of interest

  • Ethnomusicology
  • Music Sociology
  • Recording Industry in the early 20th Century
  • Music of the Mevlevi Order of Sufism
  • Jazz and Popular Musics of Turkey

  • Vita

    Yaprak Melike Uyar is an ethnomusicologist. Her main research interests are jazz and popular musics of Turkey, and the music of the Mevlevi Order of Sufism. With her dissertation on Jazz in Turkey: The Cultural Connotations and the Processes of Localization, she earned her PhD degree in musicology from the Turkish Music State Conservatory of Istanbul Technical University. She completed her MA degree in ethnomusicology at ITU MIAM, with a thesis on The Commodification of Whirling Dervish Rituals. She worked at Turkish Music State Conservatory as a lecturer for 6 years, and taught the courses of ‘History of Popular Music’, ‘Jazz Appreciation’, ‘History of Turkish Popular Music’, and ‘Popular Music Studies’. She also worked as a part-time lecturer at Bilgi University, and taught the courses of ‘History of Jazz’ and ‘Music and Gender’. She worked as a research fellow at Freie Universität Berlin, at the Critical Thinking Residency program from 2019 to 2021. In the summer semester of 2020, she delivered a course entitled Modernization and Hybridity: Musics of Turkey at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

    Between April and September 2021 she worked as an research fellow for the CMO project at Universität Münster, with her research on The Canonization of Ottoman Classical Music.

  • Publikationen/Publications/Yayınlar

    Peer-Reviewed Publications

    • Turkish Disco: At the Crossroads of Pop, Groove, Psychedelia and Anatolia, Musicologist Journal, Manuscript submitted for publication.
    • The Early Performance of Jazz Music in Turkey, Porte Akademik: Journal of Music & Dance Studies, Vol. 13 (2016), pp.129–139 (with Karahasanoğlu, S.).
    • Gender and Performance: Women Musicians of the Jazz Scene of Turkey, Porte Akademik: Journal of Music & Dance Studies, Vol. 8 (2013), pp. 86–98.
    • Recent Representations of the Music of the Mevlevi Order of Sufism, Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies, Vol. 6 No. 2 (2012), pp. 137–150 (with Beşiroğlu, Ş. Ş.).

    Book Chapters

    • Music in Turkey. In Chantal Hamelinck and Teike Asselbergs (eds.) Cultural Mapping Turkey 2019. Retrieved from https://dutchculture.nl/en/mapping-turkey
    • Popüler Müzik: Tanımlar, Teoriler ve Güncel Çalışmalar. In Evrim Hikmet Öğüt and Ulaş Özdemir (eds.) Etnomüzikoloji’de Güncel Tartışmalar. Manuscript submitted for publication.

    Conference Presentations

    • Oral Histories of Record Collecting in Turkey’s Early Jazz Scene - Recollecting a Shared Polyphony Conference. 23–24 January, 2020. EUME, Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin, Germany.
    • Narrating the History of Jazz in Turkey: Memories vs. Myths - Rhythm Changes Conference. 11–14 April, 2019. Graz, Austria.
    • Turkish Psychedelic Music: Genre, Culture and Politics - 6th Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Music and Dance in Southeastern Europe. 15–21 April, 2018. Sinj, Croatia.
    • The Localization of Jazz in Turkey - Musicult: Cultural Studies in Music Conference. 7–9 May, 2015. İstanbul, Turkey.
    • The Impact of Political History on Music Making: Issues of Ethnicity on Jazz in Turkey Between 1923-1955 - Power and Democracy: the Many Voices of Oral History. XVIII IOHA Conference. 9–12 July, 2014. Barcelona, Spain.
    • The Exploration of Term of 'Turkish' Jazz. - Musicult: Music and Culture Conference, 15–17 May, 2014. Istanbul, Turkey.
    • An Analysis of the Commodification of Whirling Dervish Rituals in the Context of Pierre Bourdieu’s Cultural Capital Theory - IV. International Hisarlı Ahmet Symposium, 6–8 June, 2014. Kütahya, Turkey.
    • Identity Practices Among Musicians within the Jazz Scene in Turkey - International Musicological Society Congress. 1–7 July, 2012. Rome, Italy.
    • A Newly Emerging Subculture in Turkey: 'Apaches' Dancing to the Fusion of Progressive Trance and Arabesk - EMP Pop Conference. 25–27, February 2011. UCLA, California, USA.
    • Musical Aspects of the Representation of Whirling Dervish Rituals as Public Performances - Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology (with Şehvar Beşiroğlu). 30 August–3 September, 2011. Glasgow, Scotland.
    • he Transformation of Un-music into Music: The Effect of Popularization on the Perception of Music in the Whirling Dervish Ceremonies in Istanbul - Un-Music Conference. 6–7 March, 2009. Harvard University, USA.
    • Music of Romani People Located in Sulukule - Music and the Urban Conference. 13–16 March, 2008. Harvard University, USA.