Murat Coşkun – Portrait of the Musician

The internationally renowned percussionist Murat Coşkun is an extraordinarily versatile and creative artist. Effortlessly navigating diverse musical realms of the East and West, he engages in various styles, including world music, early music, jazz, and experimental percussion, composes and lectures.

While his music transcends boundaries and genres, his musical and cultural roots are always clearly evident: As the son of a Turkish immigrant family, Murat Coşkun was influenced early on by his family's music and culture. Growing up in Germany, he also adapted Western music and lifestyle. This dual influence allowed him to naturally blend Oriental rhythms and melodies with the sound concepts of Western culture.

Murat Coşkun, who repeatedly deals with the concept of home in his art, defines home as follows: "For me, home is not a place, but a state that you reach in certain situations, in certain places, on certain occasions, with certain foods. This means that you have multiple "homes" which might sometimes even contradict each other. Home is, therefore, always with me — or sometimes not."

His deep engagement with themes of home and spirituality in music has driven him to open himself up to a wide variety of cultures, to be inspired by them and to acquire an extensive rhythm and music repertoire. His artistic journey has been enriched by numerous research trips to Istanbul, Damascus, Isfahan, and Mauritania. During his studies in Oriental Studies and Ethnomusicology, he focused on the music of Western Asia and Eastern Europe and thus created a strong theoretical foundation for his art.

Central to Murat Coşkun’s instrumentation is the frame drum, which in his eyes brings all musical cultures to a common denominator. It is probably the oldest and most original instrument in the world and, like hardly any other instrument, is native to all continents. In most cultures, it is primarily played by women and can be heard in a wide variety of musical areas: whether as a ritual instrument of shamans or as an accompanying instrument for weddings and celebrations, whether in sacred music or at secular concerts.

However, Murat Coşkun’s connection to the frame drum didn’t come through his mother, who was herself a frame drum player, but through his percussion teacher Glen Velez, who significantly influenced him, both through his playing and his musical views.

His concert tours have taken him all over Europe, to Asia (Mongolia, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia), the USA, Iran, Israel, northern Iraq, Sudan, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, among others. He performs in a wide variety of formations and ensembles.

As an outstanding exponent of his field, he enriches various projects and ensembles as a soloist with his frame drums, such as the National Chinese Orchestra Taipei, Metropol Orchestra (Hilversum), FBO (Freiburg Baroque Orchestra), NDR Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tonkünstler Orchestra Austria, WDR Radio Orchestra, Brandenburg State Orchestra) and he has been leading the international "Frame Drum Orchestra" since 2022. 

For many years, he was a close musical companion of Klezmer master Giora Feidman and collaborated with celebrated artists such as Hille Perl, Michel Godard, Bettina Castano, Avi Avital, David Friedman, Enrique Ugarte, Gianluigi Trovesi, and five-time Grammy winner Glen Velez.

In addition to his live performances, Murat Coşkun is also active as a studio musician and composer for numerous CD and theater productions.TV and radio productions round off his artistic profile (including ARD, ZDF, ARTE, Deutschland Radio, BR, SWR, WDR, ORF).

Beyond performing his art, Murat Coşkun is always passionate about sharing his musical and artistic knowledge. Through his international teaching activities, including numerous frame drum masterclasses and workshops, he possesses the expertise to teach the art of playing frame drum in a simple and sensitive way. In 2004, he released one of the world’s first instructional frame drum DVDs, "Finger Dance", produced numerous online tutorials, and contributed to the development of new frame drum designs (endorsing Schlagwerk Percussion and Anklang Musikwelt). Since 2014, he has been heading the Global Percussion Department at Mannheim's Popakademie.

One of Murat Coşkun’s greatest concerns is the exchange of cultures. This passion led him to establish "Tamburi Mundi" in 2006 — the International Frame Drum Festival. Over the years, this festival has become a cornerstone of the global frame drumming community, bringing together the most prominent frame drum players from diverse cultural backgrounds for nearly a week each year.

Murat Coşkun is considered an essential and enduring figure in the international music scene and continues to be one of the world’s most sought-after frame drum players. In recognition of his contributions, he was awarded the SWR World Music Prize in 1998 for his Oriental jazz ensemble FisFüz, the International ZMF Prize in 2004, and the Reinhold-Schneider Culture Prize of the City of Freiburg in 2024.