“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 Bartu, a 20-year-old French-Turkish violinist, conductor, and composer, is also a European Climate Pact Ambassador for the European Commission, one of the three Distinguished Friends of the UNICEF Île-de-France Committee, and an Artist for the Amazon for the US-based Amazon Aid Foundation. His community engagement and solidarity initiatives have allowed him to come into contact with renowned musicians, such as the legendary Wayne Shorter, who said, “Bartu is an extraordinary human being whom we need at a time when we need people capable of doing exceptional things”.
Bartu made his triple debut at the age of 15 by playing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and conducting his 1st Symphony as well as Mozart’s 29th Symphony at the prestigious Théâtre des Variétés in Paris. The concert was attended by a large audience, including the former French Prime Minister. 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”. After this concert, Maestro Jean-Claude Casadesus began to mentor and teach him. He said, “Bartu is an excellent musician (...) who deserves the utmost attention”.
In November 2023, Bartu made his U.S. debut with concerts and events organized in New York, Chicago, and Washington D.C. During this tour, in addition to professional engagements, he performed for charities supporting children in disadvantaged communities, such as Big Shoulders Fund and the Boys and Girls Club of Michael Jordan in Chicago. He also gave private concerts hosted by notable figures and organizations, including Ms. Judith Pisar, UNESCO Special Envoy for Cultural Diplomacy, and the Chicago Club. His tour also included a one-hour solo violin performance at the United Nations headquarters (UNHQ) in New York organized by the Permanent Mission of France to the UN. An excerpt from Bartu’s performance was shared on social media by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who was among the audience, with the caption, “A rare, and much needed, moment of pure beauty at UNHQ”.
In 2023, the Paris Conservatoire loaned him a 1760 violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (Ex-Vidas) for two years. Bartu is also sponsored by sustainable and equitable brands such as Harper Collective, J.M. Weston, and Noyoco.
In June 2024, Bartu obtained his Master's degree in violin from the Paris Conservatoire with “Very Honorable, with Committee Praise”, the highest academic distinction awarded in the French university system, in the class of Sarah Nemtanu, the concertmaster of the Orchestre National de France, and Eric Crambes. He received his Bachelor's degree with highest honors from the Conservatoire at the age of 18 in the class of Alexis Galpérine, a renowned professor and soloist who was a pupil of Ivan Galamian at Juilliard.
At 18, Bartu also graduated from the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, where he studied on a full scholarship and earned three prizes: the 'Audience Award' and 'Second Prize' at the Ravel Competition organized by the Maurice Ravel Foundation and the Conservatory, and the 'Marion Tournon Branly Award' of the American Fontainebleau Schools of Art.
Over the years, he had violin masterclasses with numerous prominent musicians, such as Nemanja Radulović, Vadim Repin, Shlomo Mintz, Alexander Markov, Régis Pasquier, Yair Kless, Stefan Kamilarov, and Gérard Poulet.
In June 2024, Bartu also graduated from the École Normale de Musique de Paris in the orchestral conducting class of Julien Masmondet with the highest degree, “perfectionnement”, where he had been studying since he was 17. During this time, he also participated in masterclasses with renowned conductors. For example, in August 2022, Bartu received an invitation to the LEAD! Fiskars Conducting Festival in Finland, where he took part in workshops and conducting sessions led by Maestros Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Hannu Lintu, as well as Paul Hughes, former Director of BBC Symphony & Chorus and BBC Singers. In September 2022, he spent a week at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, where he was welcomed into a session of Maestro Sakari Oramo's conducting class.
Please click to download full CV in English
“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.”
REcENT EngagementS
Since graduating from the Paris Conservatoire in June 2024, Bartu has performed as a soloist and conducted orchestras in 21 concerts across France, including at the 51st Les Arcs Festival, as well as in Spain, all within just 1.5 months. Moreover, he was selected as one of five violinists for the Académie Musicale Philippe Jaroussky as a Young Talent, which includes masterclasses with Nemanja Radulović and concerts at La Seine Musicale, an iconic concert venue and architectural landmark located on the Seine River in Paris.
During the last two years, Bartu has played in professional and benefit concerts in various European countries, including Belgium, Austria, and Italy. He also co-organized a violin-piano benefit recital for UNICEF with the Paris-based Jeunes Talents under the High Patronage of President Macron. Following his UNICEF concert, Bartu was interviewed by Maggie Ayre of BBC Radio 4 and performed for her award-winning series 'Soul Music’.
In April 2024, Bartu performed in Suriname, one of the world’s three carbon-negative countries, which is suffering dramatically from climate change. His concert was organized under the patronage of the French Ambassador, reflecting Bartu’s roles for the European Climate Pact and UNICEF. He also delivered masterclasses for a group of string players aged 11 to 60, gave media interviews and performances, and engaged in other activities. These events marked the first step of a series based on Bartu’s research at the Paris Conservatoire, which included comprehensive desk and fieldwork (with over 350 questionnaires answered by participants from 38 countries and interviews with field specialists). This research explored innovative ways of raising awareness and calling for action on environmental challenges through multidisciplinary collaboration.
Some other notable performances and events include the Gala Concert of the Triomphe de l’Art Competition at the Musical Instrument Museum in Brussels where he won the Grand Prix, as well as a concert as a conductor and soloist with the National Musique des Gardiens de la Paix Orchestra, a concert at the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs organized by the French National Commission for UNESCO, a performance at the Teatro di Marcello in Rome, chamber music concerts in Vienna organized by MdW, and the Centenary Festival of American Fontainebleau Schools of Art, which included an ensemble concert with Martha Argerich. One of Bartu's performances in Fontainebleau was featured on WQXR's Young Artists Showcase hosted by Midge Woolsey.