Murat Coşkun’s main instrument, the frame drum, is one of the oldest instruments in the world and is at home in almost all cultures. It is an instrument that connects cultures in the deepest sense, as the frame drum is at home in many musical cultures in different forms and textures and also makes completely new ways of playing possible.
Based on his studies in oriental studies and ethnomusicology, the internationally renowned percussionist has adopted the leitmotif Connecting Cultures for his work and, as a musical border crosser, mediates between the worlds of the Orient and Occident. Murat Coşkun is at home in various styles such as world music, classical music, early music and jazz and is used as a frame drum specialist for various projects and ensembles.
As a musician of Turkish origin who was born and raised in Germany, his biography already combines different cultures per se. The openness and curiosity to get to know other cultures has accompanied him throughout his life. As a professional musician, he continues on this path. In his musical projects, he tries to explore cultural interfaces and create new music from this inspiration. Traveling across the continent, Coşkun collaborates with artists from all over the world, immersing himself in a wide variety of musical cultures and deepening his musical spectrum.
As a lecturer for oriental percussion, frame drums and rhythm training, Murat Coşkun teaches his own teaching method and heads the world percussion department at the Popakademie Mannheim and the multi-year frame drum course he initiated at the Tamburi Mundi Frame Drum Academy.
Marina Baranova was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and has lived in Hanover since the age of 19. Music has always been her home – as the daughter of a couple of pianists, she grew up in a world of classical music, jazz and improvisation. She began playing the piano at the age of five. Training according to the ideals of the “Russian School” laid the foundation for her outstanding pianism, which she perfected with Wladimir Krainew in Hanover.
After moving to Germany, she studied at the University of Music, Drama and Media in Hanover. After numerous successful competitions and debuts, she realized that a career as a classical pianist only expressed part of her musical personality. At the same time, she also became aware of another talent that had already made itself felt in her childhood, in addition to her absolute sense of hearing: synaesthesia. The ability to combine different sensory stimuli into a unified process of experience is a rare phenomenon. In Marina Baranova’s case, it is the combination of sounds and colors that leads to creative explosions in her head.
She turned her attention back to improvisation and composition. She made her debut as a composer in 2013 with the album Firebird – Piano Meets World Percussion. To date, she has released six further albums in which she combines classical music, jazz, minimal music and synaesthesia. On the album Cosmic Calendar, released in 2023, she appeared as sole producer for the first time. Almost at the same time as the release, the starting signal was given for another of the artist’s major projects: since spring 2024, she has been running her own music salon in the Villa Seligmann in Hanover. The aim of this space is not only to listen to music, but also to reflect on it, discuss it and experience it in a comprehensive sense. Here, too, she focuses on music from a holistic perspective.
