Hakan Güngör was born in 1973 in Ankara. He received his first music lessons from his father, the oud player Ali Osama Güngör. In 1990 he began his music degree at Gazi University and then switched two years later to the Turkish National Conservatory of Music in Istanbul.

Hakan Güngör has a unique technical approach and has been involved since 1993 in many international concerts and recordings as a virtuoso kanun player.

Kanun, the oriental zither
The kanun has been known about in the Orient since the 10th century. It was the main instrument of masons in Andalusia and spread from there as a forerunner of the European zither in Europe. The trapezoid instrument is made of wood and has 63 to 84 strings stretched across it, with a range of three-and-a-half octaves. The kanun is plucked using plectra which are placed on the index fingers like thimbles.