Life & Work with Egemen Tosunbaş of New York

Today we’d like to introduce you to Egemen Tosunbaş.

Hi Egemen, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My journey with music started when I was a kid growing up in İzmir, Türkiye. I started playing violin around the age of nine, and a year later I picked up the guitar, which eventually became my main instrument. My musical education has been mostly self-taught. I learned by listening, transcribing, experimenting, and playing with other musicians rather than following a traditional musical education/conservatory path.

As I grew older, my curiosity about music kept expanding. I played and studied different instruments like baglama, piano, harmonica, clarinet; and I was exposed to everything from Anatolian folk music and Turkish music to progressive rock, Latin music, and jazz. Discovering Chick Corea Elektric Band when I was in middle school was a major turning point for me. From there, I became deeply interested in jazz, post-bop era, that is, more contemporary forms of the music.

I moved to Istanbul for university and studied Management Information Systems at Boğaziçi University. At the same time, I became increasingly involved in the local music scene. I played with different bands and artists, organized concerts and festivals, performed regularly at clubs, at the sime time started developing my own projects and compositions.

Along the way, I developed my own project, Eggmann, and had the opportunity to perform my original music at festivals and venues across Türkiye. I also began working as a producer and arranger, collaborating with different musicians and artists in the Turkish music scene. These experiences helped me develop my own musical voice while learning how to work across different styles and creative environments.

What brought me to where I am today is probably a combination of curiosity, persistence, and a willingness to create my own path. I didn’t really have a conventional roadmap for becoming a musician. I was studying something completely different at university while spending most of my time playing, organizing, composing, and learning on my own. Eventually, that path led me to the Global Jazz Institute at Berklee College of Music as a first guitar player from Turkiye admitted to the program, where I am now pursuing my master’s degree.

At this point, I’m less interested in simply becoming a better guitarist and more interested in discovering what I can say through music that is genuinely my own. I want to bring together the different musical worlds I’ve grown up with and experienced, while continuing to learn from the people and musicians I meet along the way.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Honestly, it hasn’t been an easy journey, especially because I was pursuing my education in a completely different field. I had been playing music since I was ten and had already decided that I wanted to make it my profession, but turning that decision into reality came with many challenges.

I always wanted to become a musician whose name could reach beyond Türkiye and have an international career, and I knew that eventually I needed to find my way to the United States or Europe. Getting into Berklee was a major goal for me, and I worked incredibly hard toward it. Since I didn’t have the opportunity to study at a conservatory, I tried to create that education for myself in every way I could. I went to concerts, attended workshops and masterclasses, sought out musicians I admired, listened and transcribed constantly, and spent countless hours practicing.

There were certainly difficult moments, but I never wanted to give up or stop moving forward. I kept working, kept learning, and kept taking one step at a time toward the life I wanted. Being at Berklee today feels like an important milestone in that journey, but I still see myself as being on the way. I’m still learning, still working, and still trying to move forward with the same determination.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m involved in many different areas of the music industry. At the heart of what I do is performing the music I love: my own compositions and the music I create and interpret within the jazz tradition. I mainly do this through the projects I release and perform under the name Eggmann.

Beyond performing, I also work as a composer, arranger, and producer. In Türkiye, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with artists such as Güler Özince, Sena Gül, and Birsen Tezer, among many others.

For me, music is less about the genre and more about whether there is something genuine and resonant within it. One of my biggest goals is to become a versatile musician who can contribute to music in different ways—not only as a performer, but also as a composer, arranger, producer, and collaborator. I’m proud that this is the path I’ve chosen for myself, and I’m still learning and working toward becoming the kind of musician I want to be.

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
I think we’re currently living through a major transition period in the music industry. The “AI” is playing an increasingly active role, and the way music is created, distributed, and consumed is changing rapidly. Musicians are also becoming content creators in a much broader sense. Of course, musicians have always created content, but today that content is no longer limited to the music itself.

I think it will take another five to ten years for some of these changes to become clearer and for the industry to find a new balance. From where we stand today, especially from the perspective of a musician who performs live, plays an instrument, and also works as a producer, the landscape can sometimes look uncertain. But I see this as a period of transition rather than the end of something. I believe new opportunities and new ways of working will emerge as the industry adapts, and I’m hopeful about where things will eventually go.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eggmann.music/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/egemen-tosunbaş-613033191/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@eggmann_music
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0OumEYqWxixav9Gh1NjvEW?si=e52f749be3794177

Image Credits
Begüm Ormancı
Salih Üstündağ