Co-founder of the Microtonal Guitar Duo, Tolgahan Çoğulu, received both his Master of Music and PhD degrees in classical guitar from Istanbul Technical University, Center for Advanced Studies in Music where he studied with Soner Egesel and Bekir Küçükay. His PhD thesis is entitled ‘The Adaptation of Baglama Techniques into Classical Guitar Performance’ and published by VDM Publishing in 2011.

His microtonal and fretless guitar duo ‘Microtonal Guitar Duo’ and lecture recital ‘Microtonal Guitar Music’ takes him to many festivals, universities and conferences such as New York Guitar Festival, Iserlohn Guitar Festival, Zihuatanejo Guitar Festival, Brno Guitar Festival, Sarajevo Guitar Festival, Santo Tirso Guitar Festival, Malaysia CGS Guitar Festival, Plovdiv Guitar Festival, Postojna Guitar Festival, Balkan Micro Fest, Alessandria Echos Festival, University of Athens, University of Surrey, Aberdeen University, University of Memphis, Mozarteum University, Wien University, Codarts University, Toronto York University, among others.

He founded the classical guitar duo ‘Duoist’ with Erhan Birol in 2007. The duo’s CD, It Takes Two (Pan Classics, 2011), features a collection of world premiers commissioned by the duo over the past decade. It is hailed by Soundboard’s Al Kunze as ‘Very cool stuff! Melody, meter, harmony, timbre, percussion effects and tuning are all exploited in original and exciting ways. When Bartok and Dusan Bogdanovic are the conservative composers on a disc, you know you are on the new ground’.

He founded the classical guitar department at the Turkish Music State Conservatory of Istanbul Technical University in 2010 as well as the world’s first microtonal guitar department at the same school in 2016. Tolgahan now lives in Istanbul, Turkey where he teaches at Istanbul Technical University, Turkish Music Conservatory (High School and Undergraduate) and Center for Advanced Studies in Music (Graduate and PhD).