Elif Yurdakul

Elif Yurdakul was born in Germany in 1979. She started taking piano and solfegé lesson at the age of five. She received flute lessons from Erkan Alpay in 1990, and studied flute with Eva Zakorskaya and Muzaffer Agamalizade in the Faculty of Music and Stage Arts at Bilkent University in 1994. She continued her flute study with Stiliana Stavreva and gave a concert with the Bilkent Young Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Mahir Çakar. In 1999 Yurdakul participated in a Vienna Music Seminar,where she studied with Prof. Jean Michel Tanguy. Yurdakul won the first prize in the Kimiko Sato Awards. In 2001 Yurdakul graduated from Bilkent University. In the same year, she won the second prize in a youth competition, held by the British Council, and went to Manchester to pursue her Master’s degree (one semester). She studied at Manchester Royal College of Music with Peter Lloyd and Richard Davis, a solo flutist of the Manchester BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2003, Yurdakul started her Master’s degree at the State Conservatory, Mimar Sinan University with Vieri Bttazini. In the same year, she gave a concert with Prof. Metin Ülkü at the Akbank Culture and Art Center. She also toured with the Tekfen Black Sea Philharmonic Orchestra. Yurdakul gave a concert as a soloist with the Istanbul Chamber Orchestra in December 2004. In 2005, she won the first prize in the 6th Haifa International Flute Contest in Israel. Yurdakul currently gives many concerts and recitals in Turkey and abroad.