Rasih Öztürk 
Composer - Guitarist - Educator - Conductor - Producer

ABOUT ​

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Rasih Öztürk is a musician, born in Izmir, Turkey. He started being interested in music by learning to play the keyboard that his father bought on his 11th birthday, by himself. Same year, his mother also bought him a guitar and it was a love at first sight. ​

He studied primary school and highschool in Izmir, Turkey. He didn't offcially or privately take any music lessons until he started his studies in the USA but in highschool, it was his life-changing chance to meet his music teacher Mustafa Kamçıcı. Rasih spent almost every day with him during his highschool years and he has always been a life mentor for Rasih. Another life changing moment for Rasih was when he met Anıl Altınsoy who is a Composition and Conducting faculty at Dokuz Eylül University State Conservatory and like an older brother to Rasih.

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Anıl introduced him to classical composition, orchestration and conducting. He has always shared his knowledge generously with Rasih like a brother. They are still working on lots of projects together and Rasih believes that he will always have a lot more to

learn from Anıl.

After he graduated from high school, he was accepted and received some scholarships from various instutions around the USA such as Berklee College of Music, Los Angeles College of Music, the Collective School of Music NY and McNally Smith College of Music. Eventually, he decided to start his studies at McNally Smith in 2016. 
 

At McNally Smith, he tested out many of the theory, key lab, ear training and guitar classes in his first semester and studied:

Guitar with Christopher Olson, Piano with Sean Turner, Composing for Media with Mark Henderson, Classical/ Modern Harmony - Theory, Composition with Jay Fuchs, Conducting with Scott Agster, Songwriting with Peter Johnson, Arranging with Peter Whitman, Music Technology with Bryan Forrester and Guitar with Mike Salow.  
He met Kavyesh Kaviraj (Keys), Kenny Watson(Drums) and Drew Stinson(Bass) in his ensemble lessons and they formed their jazz band "Jazz international".

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After he moved back to Turkey due to the unexpected closure of McNally Smith in 2017, Rasih started writing music theory books and guitar methods, arranging and producing music for songwriters, performing with his band Rasih Ozturk Quartet, rock/ pop band Kaygi and Nisa Benna. He also kept teaching composition, guitar and music theory lessons to his Turkish students and his students were accepted to many institutions around the world. Remarkably, his composition student Nisa Benna was awarded the Arif Mardin Scholarship in 2022 as well. He released his EP "Early Bird" in December 2020 and his single "I Am the Real Free" featuring Kavyesh Kaviraj(piano), Akash Iyer (Voice) in August 2021. Rasih has also been working with Sina Kologlu, who is one of the formers of his favorite childhood rock bands Bulutsuzluk Ozlemi, on his latest single "Mehvibe" as an arranger, producer and session player. 

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Rasih moved back to the USA in 2022 to attend Aspire: Five Week Program at Berklee College of Music as an Arif Mardin Scholarship Receipent. Currently, he received his Full Tuition Scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music as a full time student and he is getting prepared to start his studies at Berklee in Fall 23'.