Büşra Kayıkçı is a multi-disciplinary artist based in İstanbul. She started to study in different fields of art at early ages, such as piano, ballet, painting until college. In 2007 she attended faculty of architecture and became an interior architect. With the inspiration and technique she brings from the world of design, Kayıkçı started to work on minimalist and neoclassical compositions for piano.
In November 2019, Kayıkçı independently released the single Doğum (Turkish for Birth), which was soon followed by her debut album Eskizler (Turkish for Sketches), a collection of nine minimalist solo piano pieces. Among her subsequent digital singles were: Tuna (released in 2020), which was recorded on the Una Corda instrument built by piano maker David Klavins in Hungary; Kuledibi No. 1, created in collaboration with an Istanbul-based fashion brand and mainly inspired by the brand’s showroom, located in Istanbul’s emblematic Galata district, which for centuries has been home to people of numerous different identities, cultures and religions, and Qarib, which was included in the first Piano Day compilation, released in 2022 by Nils Frahm’s Leiter Verlag.
Lately Kayıkçı has been trying to enrich her music by combining electro-acoustic elements and reach the ideal of creating a new sound world, evident in her release Bluets in 2022, on which Büşra collaborated with Turkish composer, Ah! Kosmos.
One of Kayıkçı’s most significant interdisciplinary projects to date was a collaboration with the New York Theatre Ballet in 2020. Choreographer Melissa Toogood used her music for a piece of contemporary dance, performed by Monica Lima, which was praised by the New York Times.
Kayıkçı’s digital EP Eskizler/Sketches Revisited marked her recording debut with Warner Classics. She created new versions of five of her earliest works, music which has played a significant role in bringing her where she is today. Revisiting them and seeing them through today’s eyes, she was simultaneously looking back and looking forward.
Places, the new album from Kayıkçı, was released via Warner Classics on 24th November 2023, was a continuation of Eskizler/Sketches, using the same principles and processes that she would utilise when working as an interior architect. With Places, however, she took those sketches a step further – sometimes trying to construct a specific place, one that she misses, or sometimes it’s just about an emotion. “There are moments in life that make me believe places are also spaces in which we take refuge, and that we find shelter in our emotions, too. Those emotions become a shield, a roof over our heads protecting our inner peace.”
After an initial series of concerts in Turkey, Kayıkçı’s performing career has taken off internationally with exclusive live appearances in the UK and central Europe in 2022, 2023 and 2024.