Büşra Kayıkçı grew up with music in her native Istanbul, learning piano at the age of nine, dancing ballet and attending weekend art school. After school, however, she decided to pursue interior design as a career and studied interior architecture and environmental design at university, then worked in the profession for three years. Eventually, however, she found her calling in composition. Inspired by modern classical composers such as John Cage and Michael Nyman, she wrote her first works in 2020, just before the start of the coronavirus pandemic. In November of that year, she released the single »Doğum« (Turkish for »birth«) and then her debut album »Eskizler«. One of her most significant interdisciplinary projects to date is her collaboration with the New York Theatre Ballet in 2020, where choreographer Melissa Toogood created a contemporary dance piece based on Kayıkçı’s music.

Büşra Kayıkçı’s new album, »Places«, is a continuation and deepening of her first compositional sketches and studies from 2019, which appeared on her debut album at the time. Kayıkçı’s way of composing is in a way synaesthetic: she captures places that inspire her in music. »The pieces were written during the coronavirus lockdown«, she says. »I was in stuck inside – and I dreamed myself to places I longed for.«