Korhan Erel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Korhan Erel (1973, Istanbul)[1] is a musician, improviser, sound designer based in Berlin.
Korhan plays instruments they design on a computer or other electronic instruments by employing various controllers. They are a founding member of Islak Köpek, Turkey's pioneer free improvisation group, which is regarded as the band that started the free improvisation scene in Turkey. They compose and design sounds for dance, theater, installations and film, and collaborate with dancers, video artists, and spoken word artists.[2]
Korhan Erel was born on 26 August 1973 to Şaziye Erel and Recep Celil Erel. At the time, Şaziye Erel was working in the Turkish Customs as a clerk, while Recep Celil was working in Anadolu Sigorta. Şaziye Erel's first memory of Korhan's deep interest in sounds was when Korhan as a toddler would make her take them to a bathroom (either their own or their host's bathroom) and there she would have to flush the toilet numerous times while Korhan listened to the flushing of the water and the refilling of the reservoir. If she stopped before Korhan had heard enough, Korhan would cry and she'd have to continue, during a serious financial crisis in mid-70s Turkey where even water was rationed and sparse.
After elementary school, Korhan studied secondary and high school at Robert College, an American-Turkish secondary education institution in Istanbul, from 1985 until 1991. During this period, they had their first computer, a Commodore 64, in the summer of 1985. After a year of only playing computer games, Korhan realized the incredible sounds the computer was able to produce, and started to learn coding. With the Commodore 64, they was not able to go a great distance, but the Commodore Amiga they bought in 1989 changed things forever with its sample playback capability.[3]
