Selim Giray

Selim Giray — Biography

Selim Giray was born on 6 June 1970 in Istanbul to Crimean Tatar parents. He studied violin with Saim Akçıl at Istanbul State Conservatory and Mimar Sinan University State Conservatory, then completed his doctorate at Florida State University, studying with Eliot Chapo, a former concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic and the Dallas Symphony.

He served as associate professor of violin and viola at Pittsburg State University from 2002 to 2012, where he also conducted the PSU Chamber Orchestra and the Southeast Kansas Symphony Orchestra, and taught music education and violin pedagogy at Wichita State University from 2012 to 2015. He is currently director of orchestral studies at the University of Mississippi. From 2007 to 2015 he was concertmaster of the Ohio Light Opera, appearing on numerous Albany Records CDs during that time; he has performed on four continents and appeared on radio and television, including NPR.

An active researcher, Giray wrote a book on composer Ahmed Adnan Saygun that Turkey's Ministry of Culture published in Turkish in 2002 and the Edwin Mellen Press published in English in 2003, and he edited Saygun's violin concerto for Peermusic. In 2010 he recorded an album of works by Turkish composers with pianist June Chun-Young, and in 2020 Routledge published his book String Methods for Beginners. A dual citizen of Turkey and the United States, Giray plays a modern violin made by Anton Krutz.