Benevolent Genius
Oğuz Büyükberber in Ned McGowan's studio, Amsterdam, NL
Maybe, like me, you’ve thrown around the moniker “evil genius,” both in jest, and also perhaps more seriously in some cases. WELL…enter my friend Oğuz Büyükberber, who I will now refer to as the “Benevolent Genius”…one of the kindest, coolest, most generous fellows anyone could meet. Add to that he’s a killer musician/composer/improvser on clarinet, piano, and analog synth/sampler/etc. and voila…you have the BENEVOLENT GENIUS. I believe I met Oğuz for the first time in 2010 when Laura and I were hanging out in Amsterdam for a couple weeks while I started working with Ned McGowan on my piece for his ‘WRENCH’ project (Geometria Situs). OR…it may have been the following year when I was back in Amsterdam for the premiere of my piece for WRENCH in 2011 (?) but the first time we really got to hang out and jam together was in 2013 when I hosted Duo X at BYU—the clarinet and saxophone/sho duo with Laura Carmichael and Naomi Sato. Oğuz came along with them as they were traveling with a piece he created (and Oğuz and Laura were either already or soon-to-be married). I remember a fun open jam session with him and Christian Asplund in E250 of the now demolished Harris Fine Arts Center. Some audio from that session managed to escape the building’s demise :).
Fast forward 10 years later and after some planning and unexpected delays, we hosted Oğuz at BYU again in September 2023, this time as a solo artist, for a recording session and concert with RICKSPLUND. We’re currently putting the finishing touches on a forthcoming CD release on the TryTone label, a collective Oğuz is part of…AND, thanks to a professional development leave I’m living in Amsterdam this fall and have been hanging with him. He’s one of the good friends that have made our landing here smooth and enjoyable.
We finally got together today to jam, talk about our gear and setup, and just hang out—many thanks to Ned for making his studio available. And many thanks to our sponsors Bean Juice ™ and Red Bull ™ 😂. Looking forward to many more this fall, and stay tuned for more info on a CD release concert by the Büyükberber/Asplund/Ricks Trio sometime this fall as well. Here are some pics from our session this morning…
Fastest patcher in the West...
