Meet Sueda Catakoglu

 

We were lucky to catch up with Sueda Catakoglu recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sueda, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

I am a very emotionally driven person and I experienced a lot of difficult situations in my private life both as a musician and immigrant. However, I have such amazing people in my life who remind me of my sunshine, I try to go there each time when I feel lost. I try to connect with music again, it helps me heal. Life is too fast in this country, everything happens too quick to process but pencil and paper are there for these moments.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I am a Turkish artist based in Boston. I recently graduated as a full-tuition scholar at Berklee College of Music, pursuing degrees in Jazz Composition, Jazz Piano, and Contemporary Writing & Production. I have a debut album, featuring interpretations of legendary Turkish singer and songwriter Sezen Aksu’s songs, reflects a blend of Turkish folk music, jazz, musical theatre, and European cabaret. Released through Ahenk Müzik, the album showcases diverse influences I had from classical piano techniques to contemporary jazz approaches. As I switched from being a classical pianist to composer, improviser performer, my educator identity got influenced in a positive way as a result. As an educator, I am able to teach both disciplines classical and jazz piano as well as musical theater. I enjoy this way of teaching a lot while working with my students and I believe that I am able to provide them a broader perspective.

Currently, I am playing some shows in Boston as well as working on my debut EP which will feature three original songs of mine. We hope to release this in the Fall and we will be playing some release concerts following the release.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I am trying to preserve my character from the music industry’s competitive environment. I am very sensitive person and I try to keep this sensitivity to others. I am not ambitious, I learned not to be because whatever we do, things happen in the order that they need to happen. I can’t force anything, but that does not mean I shouldn’t be working hard. I strongly believe in the hard work, that’s the most important balance, hard work, being humble and hoping.

My goal and my motivation is to focus on myself and my artistry and develop my humanity and form a strong character as a human through my art. Therefore, I can say that arts is my tool to form a better version of Sueda, i.e. a better human.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

The Women Who Run with the Wolves is a phenomenal book. Although it is a classic, it opened new perspectives for me. Being a woman and maintaining both the feminine and masculinity might be difficult in certain situations. But this book provided me ways to stay as I am, to not to alter who I am as a person and woman.

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