Ömer Aziz Kayhan

Ömer Aziz Kayhan hails from İstanbul, Türkiye, currently living in Los Angeles where he is a Visiting Lecturer in Choral Studies at the University of Redlands. His musical journey began as a singer with Rezonans Choir under Dr. Burak Onur Erdem in 2015. He pursued undergraduatestudies in music and economics at Cornell University where he later worked as an assistant conductor. He received his master’s degree in conducting from the Eastman School of Music, under the Robert P. Fountain scholarship, graduating in 2024. At Eastman, Ömer conducted several vocal ensembles, student orchestras and was the assistant conductor for Eastman Opera Theater under Tim Long for where he prepared choruses, coached singers and conducted stagings for several productions including F. Poulenc’s “Dialogues of the Carmelites” and NkeiruOkoye’s “We’ve Got Our Eye On You”. With Eastman Repertory Singers, he has programmed music from his home country and created space for lesser performed works such as Rebecca Clarke’s “Music, When Soft Voices Die”. Ömer’s ongoing passion for orchestral music has led him to conduct several choral-orchestral projects, including Fanny Hensel’s Hiob, andindependently organize performances of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” in its centennial year and Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks”. He has been selected for prestigious festivals such as Mostly Modern, Norfolk, and the Aspen Music Festival, he has premiered many new-music compositions and conducted leading ensembles such as Grammy-nominated Seraphic Fire. More recently, Ömer was contracted by Grammy-winning conductor Gil Rose to prepare a selection of Puccini opera choruses for Lewiston’s Artpark Festival. 

 

Ömer is devoted to the research and proliferation of Turkish poetry and choral music. To that end, he has presented “Tools in Exploring Turkish Choral Music Through Poetry” and spearheaded a concert entitled “An Interfaith Choral Showcase”, an independent choral project in collaboration with two other conductors, featuring underrepresented music from five faiths and six countries. This project presented Hasan Uçarsu’s Kar Şarkısı “Snow Song” in its USA premiere.

 

Ömer is an active soloist and a professional ensemble singer as a bass-baritone. 

He has significant experience in a wide variety of styles. Past notable performances include several modern-day premieres such as Marazzoli’s Aita Amanti and La Speranza vuol così with Paul O’Dette’s early music ensemble Collegium; Baritone Soloist in Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem; soloist in Britten’s “Rejoice in the Lamb”; soloist as Historicus in Charpentier’s Le Reniement de St. Pierre; and singer in Haydn’s Die Schöpfung and Mozart’s Idomeneo with Seraphic Fire and Aspen Festival Orchestra under the baton of Robert Spano. He is currently preparing to sing the complete Winterreise by F. Schubert in the summer of 2025. In addition to his teaching load of seven courses, Ömer co-directs the Community Youth Choir, teaches private voice lessons through the Community School of Music and the Arts and supervises the Vocal Chamber Music master’s program, where he will accompany the students in their final chamber recital as a bass.