“Bartu is an extraordinary human being that is needed at a time when we need people to do special things.
The immense gifts that he has for creating music, playing and conducting is a treasure trove that symbolizes the great capacity of the human experience ...”
In an era demanding multifaceted prowess, Bartu, a 20-year-old Paris-based violinist, conductor, and composer, stands as one of the pioneers of the new wave of classical musicians. At the mere age of 15, he made his triple debut at the prestigious Théâtre des Variétés with the Orchestre Sinfonietta de Paris, where he played Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and conducted his 1st Symphony, as well as Mozart’s 29th Symphony. A large audience, including the former French Prime Minister, attended the concert. The audience acclaimed the concert, describing it as “a moment of grace, rarely seen in a lifetime”, and Bartu as a “genius” and “one of the greatest future musicians of the world”. Bartu channeled the proceeds of this concert towards the restoration of the Notre Dame de Paris, a UNESCO World Heritage, that was demolished by the fire shortly before the concert.
Bartu has so far appeared in numerous concerts, festivals, and events; most recently in Rome, Italy and Vienna, Austria, in addition to those across France.
Apart from his professional engagements, Bartu intensively uses his art and gifts for good causes, with a particular focus on the betterment of children’s lives and the alleviation of deforestation in the Amazon. One of his latest concerts that he co-organised with the Jeunes Talents Association to raise funds for UNICEF took place under the high patronage of the President of France, Mr. Emmanuel Macron. During and after the pandemic, he has collaborated with musicians and artists worldwide, developing and implementing solidarity projects, and raised funds for under-resourced and under-represented communities across the world. These initiatives enabled him to connect with renowned musicians, such as the legendary Wayne Shorter, who said, “Bartu is an extraordinary human being that is needed at a time when we need people to do special things”.
Bartu is a “Friend of UNICEF Île-de-France committee” a select group of four distinguished individuals chosen for their achievements and commitment to supporting UNICEF's mission; an ‘Artist for the Amazon’ of the US-based Amazon Aid Foundation, and an artist of the Paris-based “Jeunes Talents” Association.
Gifted with perfect pitch, Bartu started the violin at the age of 4, composition at 5 and conducting at 14. As a child prodigy, he moved from Ankara to Paris at the age of 11 with his family, upon the invitation of the French Government to study in France. He received his bachelor’s degree from the Paris Conservatoire with high honors in violin at the age of 18. There, he studied with concert violinist and professor Alexis Galpérine, who was a pupil of Ivan Galamian at the Juilliard School. Bartu is currently in the final year of his Master's in violin at the Conservatoire with Sarah Nemtanu, the solo concertmaster of the Orchestre National de France. In addition, he is working on his Master’s thesis on a topic that concerns raising awareness of deforestation in the Amazon through collaboration between music and other forms of art under the mentorship of Prof. Nicolas Donin from the University of Geneva.
When 18, Bartu also graduated from the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, where he studied with full scholarship, and earned three prizes: "Audience Award" and “Second Prize” at the Ravel Competition organized by the Maurice Ravel Foundation and the Conservatory, and “Marion Tournon Branly Award”. One of the performances of Bartu in Fontainebleau was featured at the WQXR's Young Artists Showcase hosted by Midge Woolsey in February 2023 at the program ‘Fontainebleau Conservatory’s 2021 Centennial Celebration: Ancient Palace – Cradle of Modern American Music’.
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“I can’t say enough good things about Bartu! He is incredibly talented & at the same time, he is extremely inquisitive, hungry to learn, hungry to grow and hungry to expand his vocabulary. His level of proficiency and grace are far beyond his years on this planet and I am very excited for his future as well as the future of music!”
“A moment of grace, rarely seen in a lifetime! What a privilege to have been able to hear, to see this prodigy, one of the future great musicians of the world ...”
About Symphony No. 1
by Bartu Elci-Ozsoy
“The world is changing too fast. We humans consume and waste too much of everything. We pollute and destroy. We are so distracted that we rarely care about aesthetic sensitivity, and disregard our natural gift to create, see and appreciate the beauty in everything... And we take for granted the most precious things we have: our planet, the nature, our lives and our future.
I wrote this symphony as a tribute to the days when our human-made environment was in accord with the natural environment. My music is my way of expressing the need for re-establishing the balance and harmony between humankind and the rest of the natural world. My inspiration lies in the early 20th century French classical music and the beauty of the past where that harmony existed and flourished.”
Artist Yannis Papayannis visualized Bartu’s 1st Symphony. Click to view “Visualising Bartu Elci-Ozsoy's 1st Symphony”, four canvases, 61x46cm each, acrylics on canvas and watch the videos with the painting and music below:
An Analysis
by Dominique Fanal, Principal Conductor of Sinfonietta de Paris
The symphony is subtitled "Once upon a time in Paris" in homage to a time when the human-made environment was in harmony with the natural environment as represented in early 20th century music and the arts in general.
About twenty minutes fully symphonic work that unfolds in four phases brings together a full orchestra of the strings, woodwinds and brass in pairs as well as a tuba, a harp and an important percussion.
The first movement starts with a beautiful undulation of the strings, snippets of woodwind themes, clarinet vocalizations that quickly clarify themselves like a great litany against a background of harp chords, playing on the superposition of binary and ternary elements. Then a vigorous accelerando, mainly featuring cellos and harp, leads to a grandiose and slower peroration, which favours bass strings, horns, trombones and glockenspiel...
This is followed by a movement opening with a persistent rhythm (reminiscent of Ravel, as the composer intentionally wanted to pay tribute to the music of the early 20th century) revealing (like a theme of Bolero) a haunting and nostalgic phrase of the cor anglais, which will gradually take possession of the whole orchestra, and ignite into an intense lyrical richness, with, at times, a clever polyphony. As in some music written in the past for the cinema, there is a very Parisian atmosphere with certain poetry. The young composer says, with this theme, he depicts a man feeling sad and helpless in the face of the current state of the world, who regretfully yearns for the "good old days". The orchestra sometimes deploys a mystifying sound of accordion. A virtuoso central episode (spider-like and sparkling speech of the soloist-strings and orchestra woodwinds) leads to the return of the initial plaintive theme, and the movement closes in a desolate climate...
The third movement is spectacular, brilliant and very original with its "fairground glow" and with iridescent harp and glockenspiel. According to the composer, this movement represents awakening, consciousness and joy.
A very brief finale, with its virtuoso and bold trumpets, its obstinate chords of strings, and its final theme evoking the first movement, is an expressive and powerful closing. The composer affirms that this end is "suspended", does not end on a tonic, “since there is still too much to do, and that the threats of ignorance and unconsciousness persist” ...
“Bartu is one of those exceptional talents who make us meditate on the infinitely mysterious powers of music ... A prodigy, he moves us by a kind of ageless wisdom and by his way of appropriating quite naturally the highest human aspirations. It is certainly this capacity to gather all his being in his art, cultivated every day like a vital and holy thing, which strikes immediately with the listening of Bartu.”
“Bartu Elci-Ozsoy is a compassionate virtuosic musician who uses his immense talents to help make the world a better place. Not only does Bartu’s ethereal and enlightened music reach toward the highest order, but it mirrors his great capacity as a human to emanate kindness, generosity and beauty. We are all lucky for his presence in this time and space, as it is these virtues that will carry us all towards a peaceful, just, and sustainable future.”
Social Engagement
A socially engaged musician, Bartu has been implementing solidarity projects since the outbreak of COVID- 19. He developed and led virtual collaboration projects with artists from different countries to share solidarity messages through music and produced videos to raise funds for ‘Médecins du Monde’ (“Doctors of the World”) to help the most vulnerable. He also played for nursing homes and several charities during the pandemic, and was involved in solidarity projects of other musicians. He provided the theme music to a short animation project about environmental concerns and COVID-19 crisis led by a group of visual artists from the Nordic countries.
In August 2020, Bartu designed and implemented a month-long project to raise awareness about the challenges facing the Amazon in collaboration with the Swedish LEGO builder, Emil Lidé. He composed and played a piece for up to 6 violins while Emil built Amazon Rainforest-related themes with LEGO pieces. Bartu has then become a member of the ‘Artist for the Amazon’ network of the Amazon Aid Foundation.
Bartu is currently composing a piece to raise awareness of biodiversity extinction with the involvement of young artists and musicians from CIAMO Art School in Benin, Africa.