Yurdal Tokcan was born in 1966 and grew up in Istanbul. He studied at the Turkish National Conservatory of Music in Istanbul, where he later began to teach the oud himself. Since 2003 he has given seminars, which are attended by students from all over the world. As one of the world’s best oud players, Yurdal Tokcan combined older techniques of playing with numerous new methods he has created himself. In groups and also as a soloist, including in projects with Jordi Savall; he has given countless concerts in at prestigious festivals in Turkey and abroad.
As a player and arranger, his work can be heard in many films, such as The Passion of Christ and Kingdom of Heaven, among others.
Oud or ud
In the first few centuries after the birth of Christ, we find depictions of a five-stringed ‘ud’ (alud = wood), the lute of the Islamic peoples, which gave its name to the European lute (German: Laute; French: luth; Italian: liuto; Spanish: laud). With the masons and Saracens, in the first half of the 8th century, the lute reached Spain and Sicily, and spread throughout Europe in the following centuries. The oud has a pear-shaped body and a saddle at the top that is bent almost at a right angle. It is played using a plectrum.