Ayça Miraç - A Window To The Bosporus
out on 06/02/2026 by Neuklang (Germany) and Doğan Music Company (Türkiye)
The melodic flow of the Bosporus meets contemporary jazz
With her new album A Window to the Bosporus, jazz singer and composer Ayça Miraç opens a window onto a multifaceted urban mosaic: in a unique encounter of Turkish and Laz traditions with modern jazz elements and original compositions, the album tells stories imbued with longing, love, and the incomparable atmosphere of the metropolis of Istanbul.
A quartet with an international sound
Ayça Miraç grew up in the Ruhr area and studied jazz vocals. In 2017, she founded her current quartet in Cologne, bringing together outstanding musicians with whom she can realize her vision of lyrical world jazz at the highest level.
Her singing - described by a Turkish radio station with the words “Her voice is like water, and listening to her is a true delight” - flows freely between different sound worlds and lends the music a special emotional depth through her gentle yet expressive tone.
The ensemble includes Brazilian jazz pianist Henrique Gomide, whose playing reflects the vastness of the sea and enriches the music sometimes with playful, sometimes with more contemplative solos, double bassist and co-arranger Philipp Grußendorf, who lays the harmonic foundation with his resonant tone and subtly shapes the musical flow, and drummer Marcus Rieck, whose multi-layered textures shift between driving energy and discreetly applied impulses.
The quartet impresses with its intuitive interaction and innovative arrangements. The debut album Lazjazz was released in 2018 with funding from the NRW State Music Council and was later published by Doğan Music in Turkey. In 2019, WDR3 broadcast a live concert from the Rudolstadt Festival - Die Zeit wrote: “Laz singer Ayça Miraç enchanted contemplatively…”. In the same year, the band won the CREOLE NRW competition. Most recently, live videos and singles from the Essen Philharmonic were released.
Cultural affinity combined with openness to new aesthetics
As the daughter of a Laz mother, Miraç is committed to preserving the endangered Laz language. The Laz people, descendants of the ancient Colchians, have lived for centuries in the mountainous Black Sea region that stretches from Turkey to Georgia. Today, many of them live in Istanbul or abroad.
With traditional songs such as “Heyamo”, “Ele Mele Kismeti” (English: You Are My Destiny) and “Heyamoli”, she preserves the unique character of Laz folk music, reinterpreting its archaic-sounding melodies by sensitively combining them with a more modern sound aesthetic. At the same time, original compositions such as “Yelkenler” (the sails) and “Akşam Boğaziçi’nde” (Evening at the Bosporus) transport listener to the romantic, cinematic settings of the Bosporus and reflect the magic of the old Istanbul.
This world is like a window…
Alongside her career in Europe, the singer has also performed numerous concerts in Turkey. In the well-known folk song “Bu Dünya Bir Pencere” she sings the lines:
“This world is like a window: everyone looks out and passes by”.
This title-giving thought runs like a thread throughout the album.
The window to the Bosporus also refers to her family’s second home, from which one can gaze directly at the strait and bridges connecting Europe and Asia. This place of longing, full of precious memories, is an inexhaustible source of musical inspiration.
Her warm timbre combined with a masterfully harmonized acoustic instrumental sound creates a multi-layered sound panorama in which East and West, as well as tradition and modernity meet harmoniously in the present.
A Window to the Bosporus is a homage to the magical Bosporus metropolis and her Laz heritage, an invitation to pause, listen, and immerse yourself in a musically captured vision of a cultural treasure - a beauty that, through respectful reinterpretation and improvisation, is brought to life with timeless resonance.
Ayça Miraç, voice, arrangements, compositions & lyrics
Henrique Gomide, piano
Philipp Grußendorf, bass & arrangements
Marcus Rieck, drums