Derya Yildirim - Solo

Folk music is not nostalgia. It is not a frozen tradition that only needs to be preserved. It is movement, change, expression - a mirror of society. Derya Yildirim stands for precisely this attitude: for music that tells stories, that is passed on, re-perceived and redefined with every voice that sings it.
As a singer and multi-instrumentalist, Yildirim has carved out a firm place for herself in the contemporary Anatolian
music scene.
Growing up in a family where music was a natural part of everyday life, Yildirim's first experience with the baglama was not on a stage, but at home - in the midst of house music, songs that have been passed down for generations. But her musical practice did not remain private. She studied at the College of Music and Theater Hamburg, later at the Berlin University of the Arts and has been passing on her knowledge as a baglama lecturer at the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg since 2024.
With Derya Yildirim & Grup Simsek, she is part of a global movement that sees folk songs not as a mere tradition, but as a living art form. The band combines Anatolian music with new forms of expression and will release their fourth album Yarin Yoksa (If there is no tomorrow) on the New York label Big Crown Records in 2025.

But in her solo concerts, Yildirim returns to the essence: voice and baglama. She does not reinterpret folk songs, but lets them live on - in a space that knows no genre boundaries. The baglama is not just an instrument, but a part of living culture - whose presence on the concert stage has to be constantly re-established.
"The baglama belongs on the big concert stages, not as a niche instrument, but as a
natural part of the local musical landscape." Yildirim continues this story - a story that has existed in Germany for decades but is far too often overlooked.

Her music speaks of longing and resistance, of migration and identity, of stories that need to be told. A concert with Derya Yildirim is not a nostalgic look back. It is an invitation to understand music for what it is: an ongoing dialogue between past, present and future - sometimes tender and melancholic, sometimes powerful and rousing.

deryayildirimgrupsimsek.com

Photo: Philomena