Arda Cabaoglu Virtanen, DMA

BIOGRAPHY

Arda Cabaoglu Virtanen, DMA is a conceptual performance artist, trumpeter, and artistic researcher working at the intersection of immaterial art, long-duration performance, and sound-based artistic research. His work treats performance as a physical and perceptual condition, exploring endurance, presence, attention, and the instability of live artistic action.

Trained as a trumpeter at the Eastman School of Music and Malmö Academy of Music, he has performed internationally as a soloist, chamber musician, and ensemble performer. His practice encompasses contemporary music, historically informed performance, artistic collaboration, commissioning, recording, and performance as research.

Artistic Practice

Cabaoglu Virtanen investigates how performance functions as both material and perceptual event. Within long-duration structures, sound, time, breath, repetition, fatigue, and bodily limits become elements of the work itself. His practice moves between musical action and performance art, examining what happens when duration begins to transform artistic intention, physical experience, and audience perception.

In 2020, he created and performed Forced Misophonia: BLAST BLOW PULSE at Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Istanbul as part of AKIŞ/FLUX, within a curatorial framework connected to Marina Abramović and the Marina Abramović Institute. Performed eight hours a day for four and a half weeks, the work investigated sustained sound, silence, physical endurance, and the changing relationship between performer and audience. This experience established the foundation for his continuing long-duration practice.

I’MMATERIAL — Long-Durational Performance Art

I’MMATERIAL is an ongoing series of long-duration performance works that treat performance not as representation, but as a condition of presence. Rather than producing fixed musical objects, the series examines what remains when performance extends beyond conventional limits of attention, stamina, preparation, and control. Each iteration functions simultaneously as an artwork and an inquiry.

I’MMATERIAL No.1: The Musical Lie Detector (2025–ongoing)

The first work in the series integrates physiological measurement into live performance. Development began in 2025, and the project received support from Kone Foundation for 2026. Practical development at Aalto Studios and Aalto Behavioral Laboratory brings artistic performance into dialogue with physiology, synchronized audio and video, and immediate self-evaluation.

The project investigates relationships among musical intention, lived experience, bodily response, and outward performance. It asks how attunement—understood as internal alignment among intention, experience, body, and sound—might become perceptible within short musical tasks and long-duration performance.

Professional Background

Cabaoglu Virtanen has premiered and recorded more than twenty works in solo and collaborative formats and has performed across four continents in contemporary art, experimental music, orchestral, chamber, and interdisciplinary contexts. His continuing work with Contemporary Art Music Project (CAMP) contributes to the creation and performance of new repertoire and experimental performance formats.

His related projects include IsAndAir, a violin and trumpet collaboration with Sini Virtanen Cabaoglu, and UNMUTE IT!, a workshop platform supporting dialogue between composers and performers.

He has held teaching and faculty positions in the United States and Turkey and currently works with performers on instrumental development, interpretation, contemporary repertoire, artistic identity, and sustainable performance practice. His distinctions include First Prize at the National Trumpet Competition and national recognition in the Lions European Music Prize.

Education

Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester
Rochester, New York, USA
Doctor of Musical Arts in Trumpet Performance and Literature, 2016
Studies: 2008–2010 and 2013–2016; academic leave: 2010–2013
Primary professor: James Thompson
Additional doctoral studies included performance, musicology, music theory, conducting, historical performance, and artistic research
Degree recognized by the Finnish National Agency for Education

Malmö Academy of Music, Lund University
Malmö, Sweden
Master of Music, 2013
Advanced Course in Interpretation of Music Performance, 2011
Primary professors: Håkan Hardenberger, Bo Nilsson, and Olle Sjöberg

Center for Advanced Studies in Music (MIAM), Istanbul Technical University
Istanbul, Turkey
Master of Arts, 2008
Primary professor: Erden Bilgen

Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University State Conservatory
Istanbul, Turkey
Bachelor of Music, 2005