Kaan Çelen

Kaan Celen was born in a small city of Turkey, Bolu, in 1994. At his birth, he had an unlucky event which costed him to a lifelong disability, his arm was severely broken due to malpractice of the doctor and this caused to complete loss of function of his left arm. He had spent his childhood in the neighbourhood until he started to receive drum lessons upon the suggestion of his physiotherapist when he was 15 years old. After initial learning period, he started to have interest in Jazz music at the age of 17 and received the first Jazz lessons from Ediz Hafızoglu. He won a scholarship from Bahcesehir University Jazz Music Certificate Program in 2013 and had chance to work with Ferit Odman. He also worked with Cem Aksel between 2014-2017. During that period he was entitled to attend New York Jazz workshop organized by Istanbul Bogazici University. Also in the same period he worked with several Italian and Polish musicians in some workshops of 22nd and 23rd Izmir European Jazz Festival. He participated to several concerts with Turkish Classical Music Orchestra and performed different styles of Turkish music in his small hometown Bolu. He organized a Jazz concert event at Bolu Abant Izzet Baysal University which was the very first one in the university history. Kaan gave many concerts mainly in Istanbul and also other different cities of Turkey and took the stage abroad in Greece for the first time in 2016. His debut album NA-Zİ-LE, released in 2020, The album holds a great importance in term of being the first which was released by an artist who is unable to use an arm but defies any obstacles nevertheless.