Biography
Turkish born violinist Selim Giray serves as Assistant Professor of Music Education and Violin Pedagogy at Wichita State University School of Music. Since 2007, he has been serving as Concertmaster of The Ohio Light Opera, where he performs for 20,000 patrons each season and has been featured on six CD's for Albany Records. Between 2002 and 2012, Giray served as Associate Professor of Violin, Viola and Artistic Director and Conductor of PSU Chamber Orchestra and Southeast Kansas Symphony Orchestra at Pittsburg State University. Between the years of 2000 and 2003, Dr. Giray taught at Interlochen Arts Camp. As a violinist, Giray has performed extensively in four continents, and has appeared frequently on the radio and television, including the NPR. He has performed as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and orchestral player. In 2010, Selim Giray has been appointed Field Editor for the Edwin Mellen Press.
Also an active researcher, most recently, he has recorded for the ERM Media (distributed by Naxos) with pianist Dr. June Chun-Young (release date: February 2010). In addition, he edited Adnan Saygun's violin concerto for the Peermusic Classical Europe. In 2003 Edwin Mellen Press published Dr. Giray's treatise titled A Biography of the Turkish Composer Ahmed Adnan Saygun and a Discussion of his Violin Works. The Ministry of Culture of Turkey published the same work in Turkish, with a preface by then Minister of Culture, Istemihan Talay.
Most recently, Dr. Giray performed Dvořák's violin concerto with the Southeast Kansas Symphony Orchestra, and "Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso" by Camille Saint-Saëns, and Poème by Ernest Chausson with Hays Symphony Orchestra. During the summer of 2008, he visited Asunción, Paraguay for master classes and performed the violin concerto of Emre Araci with the Camerata Orchestra. In 2004, Dr. Giray received the Rotary International’s prestigious Ambassadorial Scholarships grant, which sponsored him to teach throughout the summers of 2006–07 at Istanbul Technical University in Istanbul, Turkey. In the summer of 2006, as part of his teaching, Dr. Giray was the only professor to have the honor of giving master classes with the foremost Turkish violinist, Prof. Cihat Aşkın at the CAKA project . In addition to his teaching, Dr. Giray performed at the 34th International Istanbul Music Festival as a member of Istanbul Chamber Orchestra. Also, he played as Acting Concertmaster of Istanbul Chamber Orchestra in Islamabad, Pakistan, where he performed in front of an elite audience of foreign dignitaries. During that trip, Dr. Giray gave lectures and master classes at Istanbul Technical University, Bilkent University, and Yıldız University in Turkey, and Edison Academy in Germany.
As a doctoral candidate at the Florida State University, Selim Giray studied with Eliot Chapo, former Concertmaster of such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic and the Dallas Symphony. Prior to that, in 1992 he was awarded a joint fellowship from the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra and East Carolina University, where he studied with Fritz Gearhart. A native of Istanbul, Selim Giray graduated from Istanbul State Conservatory and Mimar Sinan University State Conservatory, where he studied with Saim Akçıl.
During his tenure at Pittsburg State University, Giray has recruited international students, including Paraguay, Romania, China, South Korea, and Turkey. Within the years his students won numerous competitions, including various Concerto-Aria and Chamber Music Competitions, and the coveted American String Teachers Association Solo Competition—Winner of 2006 Kansas Chapter. Dr. Giray’s students have been accepted in graduate programs at Yale University, Rice University, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Missouri - Kansas City and The Florida State University with assistantships. Some are members of orchestras including the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Kansas City Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, and the Chicago Symphony.
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