AYÇA AKIN - COMPOSER
Tempesta (2024)
This eight-minute orchestral work unfolds from deep stillness toward increasingly intense, storm-like climaxes. At its core is a slowly evolving harmonic language in the woodwinds, whose sustained textures and shifting sonorities provide the work’s musical thread, as the surrounding orchestral forces gradually build in intensity around it. The work was selected as a winning score in the Annual Concert Competition of the International Alliance for Women in Music. It received its premiere in Cologne, Germany on September 2025 by Virago Symphonic Orchestra, conducted by Pascale Van Os. The video below includes excerpts from the premiere performance alongside electronic renderings of the work.
Instrumentation
3.3.3.3 — 4.3.3.1 — Timp. + Perc. — Strings
Melisande (2026)
Commissioned by Confluence Ballet Company, Melisande began with Marianne Stokes’ painting of the same name. From the painting, Akın developed an original narrative centered on Mélisande’s interior world, drawing on the tension between memory and fate that underlies Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande. The resulting score was choreographed into a new dance work by Confluence Ballet Company and received its world premiere in Spring 2026. The video includes stills from the performance and a live recording by Confluence Music Ensemble.
Instrumentation
Fl. (picc., A. Fl.), Cl. in B♭, Vln., 2 Vc., Pft.
Ayça Akın creates music that prioritizes emotional journey. Her storytelling is visceral, immediate, and unapologetically expressive. Akın composes for film, dance, live ensembles, and orchestras. Her work has appeared in several films and has been performed in Cologne, Budapest, New York City, and Pittsburgh, where she resides.
Akın studied piano performance at Carnegie Mellon University’s Music Preparatory School. From 2022 to 2024, she completed her orchestral composition studies under composer and teacher Leon Willett. Recognized for her musicality and emotional depth, Akın was nominated for “Best Composer of the Future” at the Cannes World Film Festival for her original score to the award-winning film The Balloon (2025).
Also in 2025, Akın won the Annual Concert Competition for the International Alliance for Women in Music. The Virago Symphonic Orchestra premiered her piece Tempesta in Cologne in September. Other recent commissions include new music for Confluence Ballet Company’s spring 2026 season. Akın holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Carnegie Mellon University.