Duygu Gun

About the Artist

Duygu Gün (pronounced as doo-EE-goo GOON). I am an arts professional, musician, artist, and curator from Turkey. With a desire to explore cultures and traditions around the world, I set on the road in 2006 and have lived in Italy, the UK, Germany, the US, and briefly in Brazil. While I preserved and represented my culture in different lands, I also learned and practiced the language, music, dance, and traditions of each culture I acquainted myself with. My works incorporate explorations and interpretations of the cultures I have been hosted by, exploring commonalities and questioning underlying meanings within traditions using music, photography, video, light, and shadow as mediums.

As an arts professional, I am passionate about supporting the local music scene and the preservation of folk culture. I work at San Francisco Opera overseeing business partnerships. In 2022, I co-founded Anatolian Arts Institute, in order to create spaces and platforms to uncover the diverse cultures and traditions of Anatolia in the Bay Area.

I perform around the Bay Area covering folk music from the Mediterranean Sea in Turkish, Ladino, Greek, Griko, and Italian with my guitar-accordion duo ‘Nakarat’. I am also currently working on a documentary about the Balkan music scene in the Bay Area.

Nakarat is a San Francisco-based duo featuring Duygu Gun on guitars and vocals and Jonathan Kipp on accordion. Our music is a vibrant, emotional melange of folk songs in Turkish, Ladino, Greek, Griko, and Italian. A Mediterranean breeze with spicy nomadic tunes from the region.