We were lucky to catch up with Ali Tolga Demirtas recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ali Tolga, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I was born in a musical family. Since the beginning of my childhood, music was always a sort of game for me and a passion. Honestly, it has been more than a job or profession in my life and therefore I can tell that I haven’t worked as a musician but I think the first gig I’ve made money through music was the one that I played with my father in a restaurant in Turkey. Then, gigs started following each other. Anyway, this was not a what I wanted actually, I was feeling deeper connection, passion, love and chemistry with music. I realized that passion started around 5 and kept getting bigger and bigger every year. The more I discovered this passion, the more I was drowning into it by engaging more with musical activities such as kids choir. It was probably around 7 first I was encountered to a polyphonic choir in my life. It was the one and the biggest evolution for me to got involve the western polyphonic music world. The passion inside me got bigger after I listened the pieces of great composers’ greatest musics like Beethoven 5th, which is milestone in my career and at this point there was not a lot to do to decide about career because it was already chosen for me by my inner passion.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Well, I am Los Angeles based film composer, pianist, multi – instrumentalist, conductor, singer and mix engineer Ali Tolga Demirtas. I’ve begun to music at 5 by taking classical piano lessons. From age 5 through 16 I was just only in classical music. I’ve increased my knowledge, skills, understanding in music by analyzing and playing various of great composers in classical era. That time period was the most productive one in my life because there was almost no any distraction at the time and therefore, I could just only focus on expanding my abilities and personal growth. Early ages are the best ages for anyone who wants to be successful in any field. Anyway, after age 16, I’ve discovered an other important thing in my life. It was tending to play different instruments and genres. That was very surprising for me to have strong enthusiasm of playing other instruments. I first started with violin, then trumpet, oud, percussions, bass guitar, classical guitar, clarinet and it went on.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

There are too many lessons that I’ve learned and I need to learn. This is like never ending process. The approach as an artist has to be always open to learn everything and update myself like a student. It should not be always music and art, it has to be anything in any field to improve intellectual side of the personality. That strong personality creates better understanding of the world and thus artistry groves. For example, even you are a musician, you should grove your intellectual side by learning history, languages, science, philosophy, maths, other fields of art such as painting, ballet, etc.

Besides of everything that I should in this journey, my priority to be known as a musician has to be more improve my public relation and networking side. As far as I see in the years, talent is the least important in music business than who you know or who you are known by. We should more focus on that as a musician.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

This is literally a gift from universe. Rewarding part is very apparent, when you create something, you become enlightened, more aware of everything around, feel and enjoy deeply. Besides of some spiritual superiorities, music and creativity brought me to be noticed quickly among other people. If you have a great talent, you can connect people or socially be loved by them easily. That is what I experienced in my life. However, I can tell that emotionally being connected to the universe through music is a priceless gift over all.    

Contact Info:

• Website: www.alitolgademirtas.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alitolgamusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alitolgamusic/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alitolgamusic/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alitolgademirtas