Tanburi Cemil Bey was an influential Turkish musician born in 1873 in Istanbul who greatly contributed to the taksim genre of Ottoman classical music. He was a virtuoso of multiple string instruments including the tanbur, kemençe, and lavta. He reformed the playing technique of the tanbur and was also the inventor of the bowed tanbur. Though a sensitive person, he suffered from alcoholism later in life. Many of his compositions were preserved in his recordings.

1. Tanburi Cemil Bey
(Tambouri Djemil Bey), (1873, Istanbul – July 28, 1916, Istanbul) was a Turkish tanbur, yaylı tanbur, kemençe,
and lavta virtuoso and composer, who has greatly contributed to the taksim (improvisation on a
makam/maqam) genre in Ottoman classical music. His son, Mesut Cemil Bey, is an equally renowned tanbur
virtuoso.
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Tanburi Cemil Bey was born in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire, in 1873, though his birth date is uncertain. He took
his first lessons in music from Kanuni Ahmet Bey and the violin player Kemani Aleksan, his first instruments
thus being the violin and the kanun. After completing middle school, he continued in a school for civil servants
(Mülkiye), but then devoted himself to music and abandoned his education. He began to play the tanbur quite
early in his youth and by the age of 20, his renown had already spread among the tanburis of Istanbul.
Reforming the traditional playing technique of the tanbur, he developed an energetic technique based on a
rich and agile picking style, lightening to a great extent the sonority of this instrument. Later on, he set about
playing the Turkish classical kemençe and attained an astonishingly high level of technique, so much so that
the virtuosity level of the Ottoman kemençevi of Greek-Gyspy origin Vassilis (1845-1907), considered as then as
"the reference", came to be thought of by certain amateurs to be outmatched... He was also the inventor of
the yaylı (bowed) tanbur.
He was a very sensitive and nervous person, who eventually suffered from alcoholism. Most of his compositions
have been preserved in his recordings, but some of his work were incomplete when he died.
Sadettin Kaynak
(1895 – 1961) was a prominent composer of Turkish classical music.Born in Istanbul, he became a hafiz at a
young age. He completed his music education at the Istanbul University. Later, he traveled to south east
Anatolia and researched Turkish folk music there. He lived through the ban on Turkish music during Atatürk's
time, but still remained a well known composer writing music for poetry and movies from Egypt. He had a
stroke in 1955, and lived paralyzed until his death on February 3, 1961. He has got 330 composition in 42
different makam.