Clarinet

The clarinet is a single-reed woodwind with the widest range of any common wind instrument, from its dark, velvety low chalumeau register to brilliant highs. Beyond its central place in classical music and early jazz, the clarinet became a leading folk voice across the Balkans and Anatolia, where its flexibility lets players bend pitches and ornament melodies in ways close to the human voice.

How Deniz Mahir plays it

That double life — concert instrument and folk voice — mirrors Deniz Mahir Kartal’s own path between conservatory training and village repertoire. The clarinet lets him slide between those worlds within a single phrase, and joins the duduk, kaval and saxophone in the palette of winds he brings to his ensembles and to KafaNar.

Hear it: watch Deniz Mahir play the clarinet.