BİO

Oğuz Büyükberber is an Amsterdam based performer/composer who’s specialized in clarinets, modular synthesizers and visuals. His style merges contemporary music, jazz and influences from his Turkish background. His activities as a modular synthesizer artist is often presented under his alter ego artist name OX Barber.

His body of work includes over 60 albums including releases on ECM and Blue Note, a detailed method book explaining his own improvisational systems, exhibitions of his visual art, university lectures and dozens of commissions he received to compose ensemble music as well as electro-acoustic and audio-visual pieces.  

He studied bass clarinet with Harry Sparnaay at Amsterdam Conservatory and took composition lessons from Theo Loevendie. Also holding another degree in fine arts, he incorporates his own visual art in his music work. His activities as a modular synthesizer artist is often presented under his alter ego artist name OX Barber.

Composing and Improvising in a cutting edge avant-garde setting is where he feels most at home. Be it all acoustic, all electronic or anything in between.

WORKS

PROCESSING

A staged Audio Visual Performative Composition accompanied by an album release

2023

For clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Modular synthesisers, Live electronics and Live Drawing

Commissioned by Pantopia Music and Spreehalle, funded by Kulturstuftung des bundes and Die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung

Click here to listen to the album

Read the interview on Fenestra

Ox barber

abstract beats, glitchy textures and complex melodies on modular synthesizers

Read the interview about the ERICA SYNTHS RESIDENCY

SPIRAL - A book on generating pitch content for improvisation/composition

Concerto for Bass clarinet and orschestra

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

Concerto for improvising bass clarinet and 18 Piece Orchestra

2021

Commissioned by Orkest de Ereprijs Funded by Fonds Podiumkunst

Oğuz Büyükberber, Marc sinan duo on ecm

white

Click here for the review on downbeat

Album info on ECM website

Listen

Oğuz Büyükberber on Apple Music

Oğuz Büyükberber Trio on Apple Music

Ox Barber on Apple Music

News

Quotes

"An open, curious attitude attracts and characterizes him as a musician"

Henk Jansen De Klarinet Magazine

Büyükberber shows himself to be a flexible soloist who draws his musical lines between introverted and extroverted and who covers the entire spectrum of his instrument

Opduvel

“The pair’s highly expressive phrases diverge, but periodically arrives at a striking juncture, either by chance or design their every note and gesture a sonic delicacy.”

Martin Langley / Downbeat Magazine From his ****1/2 review of the ECM Records CD “White” by Marc Sinan and Oğuz Büyükberber

"Büyükberber and Klein are adept at holding the compositions together even as they push the limits beyond formal constructs. The musicianship is first rate..."

Karl Ackermann / Allaboutjazz About the CD Reverse Camouflage by Oğuz Büyükberber Tobias Klein Duo

“It is clear in all of the pieces that fluidity as well as unpredictability of water underlies the playing of both musicians. There is always an element which challenges both performers yet ultimately lifts the music to a higher level where the musicians "collide". Nowhere do Sophie Hassfurther and Oguz Büyükberber get into trouble with each other, the elusive nature of water does indeed characterize their unity...” 

Rinus van der Heijden / jazznu.com About the CD "Mind Like Water" by Oğuz Büyükberber Sophie Hassfurther Duo

Artistic statement

My limited eye sight has shaped many things in my life.

As much as I might have longed for an alternate version of myself - a motorcycle racer, comparative language researcher or a surgeon - these were only abstract ideas, and dwelling on the lack of those possibilities didn’t make sense. Better to embrace the power of constraints and focus on what’s there rather than what’s not there.

I am the musician I became.

Having only 5% total sight without depth perception, I need high contrast, bright colors and clear edges to be able to identify and remember things. Some of the core concepts of my work are manifestations of how my particular lack of vision influenced my musical output in a very visual way with angular melodic lines and a specific approach to create coherent yet unconventional harmonic content. This approach enables me to easily remember my own compositions and to create a space in which I can travel freely between strictly composed and improvised material.

In the last ten years, my already very poor vision has further decreased and got distorted.nAs a result, my work is increasingly becoming to be about issues related to disabilities. I reflect on the restless, ambiguous, distorted, and at times scary visual perception I have, while I envision

raising awareness to all kinds of disabilities through artistic expression. I work on feedback loops around composition, improvisation, drawing, text and sound and explore my own emotional response mechanisms.