Beste Sevindik is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Area Studies.

More information about Beste Sevindik

PhD Research
My research project “Sakkyokuka: Gender, Networks, and Representation in Contemporary Music Composition in 21st-Century Japan” examines the professional trajectories, artistic practices, and cultural positioning of women composers in contemporary Japan.

In my research, I explore the figure of the sakkyokuka (composer) not only as a professional title but as a socially and institutionally situated artistic identity. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and archival research, I investigate how women composers negotiate artistic recognition, institutional expectations, and economic uncertainty. I am particularly interested in the intersections of canon formation, gendered labor, transnational mobility, and digital self-curation in the post-bubble, post-COVID Japanese cultural economy.

Publications

• Sevindik, B. (2023). Voices of Women Musicians in the Japanese Music Industry: a Survey Questionnaire and Interview study. Gendai josei to kyaria (Modern Women and and Careers) No. 15 (2023.9).
• de Wit, K., Sevindik, B. (2024). Meaningful Music in Healthcare: Professional development and discovered identities of classical musicians working in hospital wards. “Futuring Classical Music” MCICM (The Maastricht Centre for the Innovation of Classical Music).

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Education

• Bachelor of Arts: Japanese Studies, Leiden University, 2019-2022
• Master of Music: Classical Violin, Prince Claus Conservatoire Groningen, 2014-2016
• Bachelor of Arts: Classical Violin, Hacettepe University Ankara State Conservatoire, 2008-2012

Employment

• PhD Candidate, Leiden University, 2024-present
• Junior Researcher, Research Centre Art & Society, Hanze University Groningen, Research Group Music in Context, 2019-2025
• Junior Researcher, LeidenAsiaCentre, 2025
• Classical Violinist (self-employed), 2016-present

Grants

• Isaac Alfred Ailion Foundation, PhD Fellowship, 2024 – 2029
• Marmara Fonds, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, 2014
• Klaas Dijkstra Award Studiefonds, Prins Claus Conservatorium Groningen, 2013-2016