Mircan Kaia

Mircan Kaia (Mircan Kaya) is a musician and an engineer from Turkey with her roots in Georgia who has produced several albums and directed and coordinated international engineering projects. [1] Mircan]

Born in a mountain village in the Black Sea Region of Turkey, the daughter of a Megrellian family who had migrated from Georgia, Mircan's life is the primary source of her music. In her early childhood years she went through a period where she listened so intensely that her family thought she could not speak. Ever since, Mircan has preferred sitting in silence so she can call to mind the sounds of nature.

Mircan started singing very early, in infancy, when she would rather sing adult songs than those for babies and children. Singing with orchestras in wedding ceremonies became an activity for her. At age twelve, Mircan went to the local music shop and bought the guitar she had longed for. She asked the owner of the shop, who was a music teacher, for guitar lessons.

By the time she was studying at Nisantasi Girl's High School in Istanbul, she felt the desire to work on more demanding songs. At age sixteen, having seen an ad on the door of a big music shop she used to walk past every day, she took down the number of a Jewish guitar teacher, called him and said she would like to take lessons. Not long afterward, the teacher took her to Tunel to buy a new guitar. To buy the new black jazz guitar, she sold the gold medallion her father had given her for being the best student at school.

Mircan's songs became more colorful with her new guitar. At seventeen, she wrote her first song. That first song was in English, probably because of her correspondence with pen pals over the years.

When she started university, her goals were to read art and literature, to learn to play the guitar well, to reach an advanced level of English and Arabic, and to dance. So she worked hard at classical Turkish music chorus, traditional folk dance, aesthetic gymnastics, the library at the British Cultural Center, the university library, the Libyan Consulate and a symphonic rock group.

She made her first overseas journey during these years – to Jordan, where she went on a scholarship given by the university. There she saw Petra, the mysterious desert atmosphere and the Dead Sea. The tunes she improvised along the path to Petra were to pave future roads for her.

She and her friends formed a rock band and produced cassettes of songs that they had improvised. Their keyboard player had studied English Literature and the drummer had studied English Language and Literature, while the guitar player, who was a mechanical engineer and a painter, had also written songs from poems by Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, Gulten Akin, Metin Eloğlu and others. During this period, Mircan studied under Erguder Yoldas who, on first hearing her playing guitar and singing, decided he would be her manager. He tried to introduce her to the theater and music communities, but that environment was a distraction and interrupted the development of her instrumental skills – transforming the act of playing guitar into accompaniment for her vocals. Although it stayed together more than six years, the group disbanded without producing any albums.

Music

The first album she put out was Bizim Ninniler (Our Lullabies), which was followed by Kül (Ashes). Mircan Kaya, who lives now for the most part in Istanbul, but has her roots in Mingrelia (in what is now the independent Georgia), has become increasingly well known in recent years for her distinctive music; but she brings to the Turkish cultural scene much more than her music.[1][2]

In 2006, she expanded the operational scope of her engineering company in advanced engineering and earthquake technologies and founded UCM (UnCatalogued Music Production), which works with independent culture and art projects. She released three more albums in these two years. Numinosum – a musical journey based on the concept of "numinous conscious" used by Carl Gustav Jung. She combined her own lyrics with the poetry of Rumi. This album was recorded in Bristol, UK, with the post jazz group Limbo. Roger Mills and Osman Kent worked on the final edition, mixing, mastering and sound engineering of the album.

Before she set off for her advanced master study at the University of Padua and the Technical University of Catalonia, Mircan Kaia released her most avant-garde music project OUTIM – Once Upon a Time in Mingrelia, a work combining journeys to Georgia and Eastern Black Sea of Turkey, writing a book, constructing a house with local materials and carpenters, recording a music album using her own lyrics as well as the words of the Mingrelian poet Xhelimishi Xasani.

Mircan's third album "Sala" was reviewed by FROOTS magazine and described as a Pre-Raphaelite tapestry, a genius work full of juxtapositions.

Mircan Kaya was awarded the best film music award at 47th Antalya International Golden Orange Film Festival in October 2010 with the music she has produced for the film "Kar Beyaz/White as Snow" directed by Selim Gunes. The scenario, which was written by the director Selim Gunes, is based on one of the writer Sabahattin Ali's story " Ayran". Mircan Kaya produced the film music in collaboration with musicians in Turkey, Australia and England. The music contains songs from her albums "Sala", "Outim","Numinosum", "Kul & Ashes" as well as two new songs she composed with the work of great living women poet of Turkey, Gulten Akin.

On her album "Elixir" which was released in 2010 she composed the poems of Gülten Akın. The album was in the "Best of 2010" by the world music program "Crossing Continents" of California KDVS Radio, a program produced by Gil Medovoy.

In January 2012 Mircan Kaia was awarded the Best Film Music Award at the 44th SIYAD Cinema Awards.

In 2012 Mircan Kaia was assigned as the President of the Board of Turkish Association of Seismic Isolation.

In March 2012, Mircan Kaia recorded the first contemporary lullaby album in Laz – Mingrelian language in London with British musicians. The album Nanni contains ten original lullabies in Laz – Mingrelian language and one lullaby in Abhaz language. In the same year she also released her album Minor on which she rendered the folk songs of minority people of Turkey as well as her own compositions. The album has been reviewed and praised by World Music Central.

In 2014, Mircan Kaia scored the music of short film The Chocolate Wrapper directed by Murat Kebir in Londor. The Film was awarded the Best Foreign Film at the International Family Film Festival in the US.

In 2014, Mircan Kaia's first book "Gece Karanlık Cekirge ve Sen / Night Darkness Locust and You" was published.

Mircan Kaia is the mother of two children.

Engineering

She has expertise in project management and Coordination, structural design, structural analysis of historic constructions, earthquake resistant structural design, anti seismic technologies, and earthquake protection devices.

She is the Agent of FIP Industriale and dealing with, earthquake protection technologies, seismic devices, energy dissipators, expansion joints, and noise barriers for new and existing structures.

Between 2002 and 2005 she completed structural projects. During this period she worked for Enka Construction for tender preparation of the three drinking water treatment plants of Oued Athmania, Koudiat Medaouar and Ain Tin in Algeria. She has carried out part of the analysis in Algeria at the Athmania Dam Construction Site.

In 1999–2002 she worked in Enka Teknik, as the civil engineer responsible for the design and supervision of the treatment plants of two power plants in Adapazarı and Izmir.

In 1995–1999, for U+M Architectural Engineering and Consultancy Ltd, she worked as the founding partner of the company.

In 1995– 1997 she worked at Seyas Sey Architectural, Engineering, Consultancy as the business development manager and the head of the infrastructural department. She completed the Samur Apsheron Irrigation Project in Azerbaijan as the project manager, infrastructural projects of Kemer Golf and Country Club in İstanbul. She signed the contract for the Kayseri Waste Water Treatment Plant in Germany.

In 1989–1992 she worked at Yapi Merkezi- Freyssinet International Joint Venture, as the business development manager and deputy general manager. She was trained by the French technical manager during this period on post-tensioned concrete, alternative bridge design, expansion joints,and bearing pads.

In 1986–1989 she worked at Sogreah-Seyas Joint Venture, as the key engineer for the computer based mathematical modelling of the Istanbul Drinking Water Network and SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) Project.

In October 2008, Mircan began working on an advanced master's degree on historical artifacts with rotations in universities in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Czechoslovakia through a European Commission grant. She also studied music theory in England.

• Ehnology Award from MOTIF FOUNDATION, 2014, for her music show Kanavice
• Yıldız Technical University, Best Artist of the Year, 2014, for her achievements in both artistic productions and technological activities as an alumni .
• International Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, Best Original Film Music 2010, for White as Snow.
• 44th SİYAD Awards, Best Music 2011, for White as Snow.
• President of TASI, Turkish Association for Seismic Isolation, 2012.
• Music Director of IMO Music Istanbul Chamber of Civil Engineers, 2012.
• Member of Italian Chamber of Commerce, 2002–2012.
• Advanced MSc Degree in The Structural Analysis of Historic Constructions, European Commission Scholarship University of Padua, Technical University of Catalonia, University of Minho, University of Prague, 2008–2009.
• MSc Degree in Earthquake Engineering, Boğaziçi University, 2006–2009.
• Degree in Civil Engineering, Yıldız Technical University.

• Bizim Ninniler, 2005, Çan Music
• Kül, 2005, Kalan Music
• Kül & Ashes, 2006, UCM Production
• Sala, 2006, UCM Production
• Kül & Ashes, 2006, UCM Production
• Numinosum, 2007, UCM Production
• OUTIM (Once Upon a Time in Mingrelia), 2008, UCM Production
• Elixir, 2010, UCM Production
• Nanni, 2012, UCM Production
• Minor, 2012, UCM Production