Ankara Combo & Elif Tacer (Vocal) (Turkey)

ANKARA COMBO was founded by Kemal Gunuc, the conductor of the Ankara Municipality City Band, to perform jazz standards and mix Turkish ethnic melodies and rhythm into a jazz format.

The formation comprises professional musicians, who have come together to share the joy of music by giving concerts and joining festivals in the country and abroad.

The musicians are mainly from the Ankara Municipality City Orchestra, Presidential Symphony Orchestra and Bilkent Symphony Orchestra. Vocalist: Elif Tecer, composer and arranger: Mehmet Erdemli.

The jazz group’s artistic leader Kemal Gunuc is a well-known Turkish composer, a graduate of the
Ankara National Conservatory. Has won numerous musical awards in Turkey, France, the USA, Italy and Romania. Vocalist Elif Tecer has been with the orchestra for 20 years. She took part in the Ankara Jazz Festival in 2003 in the workshop project of Izaline Calister.

In 2006, she performed together with jazz diva Diane Schuur, Scott Steed, Reginald Duane Jackson and Thomas Fleeman in Turkey, and in 2007 - with Rex Richardson. Kemal Gunuc and Elif Tecer have both appeared at
festivals in Bulgaria, at the Seoul Art Festival, and have performed in Okay Temiz’s project Rhythm of Music with the Ankara Municipality City Orchestra.