Cagdas Soylar is a much loved and very successful teacher.  Many of her students are still with her even as she has moved to new locations.  She enjoys teaching students of all ages and skill levels.  

Cagdas Soylar, born in Izmir, Turkey, moved to the capital city of Ankara, at the age of 11 to enroll in the H.U. Ankara State Conservatory where she studied piano for 10 years. 

After completing her bachelor’s degree in piano performance, she worked as an accompanist at the same conservatory and taught piano at universities and many private institutions for several years in Turkey. In 2009, she traveled to the United States and started her graduate studies in piano performance at Pittsburg State University with an honor scholarship.  Cagdas has a second master’s degree in Keyboard Collaborative Arts from Azusa Pacific University in CA, USA and a DMA in piano performance from Ankara University. She has performed as a solo pianist and collaborative pianist in many countries in Europe, Canada, and China including China’s National Center for the Performing Arts Hall in Beijing, one of the most prestigious concert halls in Asia.

In October 2018, her first book on Olivier Messiaen, a prominent twentieth-century French composer, was published by Wipf and Stock Publishers in the United States and has become available in many countries in Europe as well as Japan, Taiwan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil under the title of “Messiaen’s Musical Language on the Holy Child”. It has been extremely well received by prominent universities and libraries both in the U.S. and abroad.