Pianist, composer, and accordionist Hakan A. Toker is from Mersin Turkey. He studied classical music in Turkey and the United States, graduating from Indiana University School of Music (BM), where he double majored in piano and composition. Besides his formal education, he is mostly self-taught in the fields of improvisation, jazz, and world music.

To date, he has performed in 28 countries and taken stage in many international festivals including the Indianapolis Jazz Festival (USA), Istanbul Music Festival (Turkey), and Festival of Virtuosi (Ukraine). He has performed with many masters of Eastern and Western music including Munis Sharifov (Azerbaijani kamancha player) and Yildiz Ibrahimova (Turkish/Bulgarian ethno-jazz singer). He has collaborated with many symphony orchestras, ensembles, singers, dancers, poets, jugglers, acrobats, actors, and actresses, and he has been a member of bands including Salaam (Middle Eastern Music), Orquesta Son (Latin American Music), Silk Road (Central Asian Music) in the United States, and Tanini and Toker Trio (Turkish-Western-Jazz Fusion) in Turkey. He has performed many classical and improvised recitals, informative concerts, music for silent films, multimedia, and musical-comedy shows.

Toker is particularly known for his interpretations of Turkish music and his amazing interactive improvisations, commanding a multitude of styles and genres. He has taken part in symposiums in many educational institutions and given masterclasses internationally.

He is the first and so far only known Turkish concert pianist to utilise microtonal tunings in his recitals featuring authentic Turkish traditional music. He was given the “Our Living Values” award in 2013 during the first Mersin Cultural Festival.

This is Toker’s second album with Navona Records. His first appearance was with the album VIVALDI – 4 SEASONS FOR 3 PIANOS (2017) together with Matej Meštrović and Matija Dedić, which brought them the Global Music Awards Silver Medal.

News

January 4, 2019

The Inside Story: Hakan Toker and TOKER MESSING AROUND

Albums

Toker Messing Around… With The Classics ;)

Release Date: January 25, 2019
Catalog Number: NV6202
20th Century
Classical
Solo Instrumental
Piano
“Music is a game we play… It is to be respected, but not to be taken too seriously. It belongs to all of us. It is ours to create and recreate, to mess around with, as long as we give credit.” In his own words, Toker expresses the freedom that can be found within the written page of every musical score. A whole world can be discovered, rediscovered, and recreated in a single piece, and TOKER MESSING AROUND seeks to do just that.

4 Seasons for 3 Pianos

Release Date: August 25, 2017
Catalog Number: NV6114
Baroque
Chamber
Piano
Navona Records proudly presents 4 SEASONS FOR 3 PIANOS, a whirlwind transcription of Vivaldi’s masterful string concertos by Croatian pianist and composer Matej Meštrović. Performing with Hakan A. Toker and Matija Dedić on three pianos (and accordion), Meštrović thoroughly reimagines the four concertos, his work exceeding that of a normal transcription. The collection, in such a radical new form, becomes almost a whole new work.