Dr. Cengiz Sarikus was born in Malatya,Turkey in 1946. He graduated from History of Art Education Department of Istanbul University. He joined the government and served as teacher of History of Art for 26 years in several high-schools. Sarikus began his musical education as a 13-year-old young lad on the baglama, a rural folk instrument. He learned how to make and how to play the baglama in those days. While attending the university in Istanbul, he continued to make baglama and classical tanbur. Dr Cengiz Sarikus was the tanbur principal student of Agop Ohanyan, the prominent tanbur & oud player and maker of his time.
He studied with Ohanyan for a period and then he worked together with other masters who perform & make kanun ( a zither like musical instrument with seventy-two strings) In 1973, he intended to open his workshop in Aksaray , Istanbul and he still works with passion in
order to teach this hand skill and tradition to his own students and to the new generations.
