Ilhan Mimaroglu

Who was Ilhan Mimaroglu?

İlhan Mimaroğlu was a musician and electronic music composer. He was born in Istanbul, Turkey, the son of the famous architect Mimar Kemaleddin Bey depicted on the Turkish lira banknotes, denomination 20 lira, of the 2009 E-9 emission. He graduated from Galatasaray High School in 1945 and the Ankara Law School in 1949. He went to study in New York supported by a Rockefeller Scholarship. He studied musicology at Columbia University under Paul Henry Lang and composition under Douglas Moore.

During the 1960s he studied in the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Center under Vladimir Ussachevsky and on occasions worked with Edgard Varèse and Stefan Wolpe. His notable students included Ingram Marshall.

He worked as a producer for Atlantic Records, where he created his own record label, Finnadar Records, in 1971. In the same year he collaborated with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard on a moving anti-war statement, Sing Me a Song of Songmy. He also was the producer for Charles Mingus’ Changes One and Changes Two, as well as Federico Fellini’s Satyricon.

He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition in 1971.

İlhan Mimaroğlu died of pneumonia in 2012.