Arda Cabaoglu, D.M.A., is a musician, music scholar, educator, and a performance artist resides in Helsinki, Istanbul, and New York City. He recently completed his doctoral studies in Trumpet Performance, Repertoire, and Literature at the Eastman School of Music. Dr.Cabaoglu’s primary trumpet and music teachers have included James Thompson (USA), Håkan Hardenberger, Bo Nilsson, and Olle Sjöberg (Sweden) and Erden Bilgen (Istanbul).

As a Borusan Music Scholarship fellow, during his doctoral studies at Eastman, Cabaoglu received the opportunity to study at Malmö Academy of Music in Sweden. This three-year period of leave to study in Sweden further deepened Cabaoglu’s interpretive emphasis and developed his methodologies relating trumpet performance to the use of one’s voice. Before Eastman, he studied at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Istanbul State Conservatory and the ITÜ—MIAM Center for Advanced Studies in Music in Istanbul.

Since 2000 until the completion of his education, Dr.Cabaoglu has appeared as soloist with the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic, Izmir State Symphony, Orchestra Academic Başkent, Antalya State Symphony, Istanbul State Conservatory Orchestra, Malmö Musikhögskolan Chamber Orchestra, and the Eastman Chamber Orchestra. Recent ensembles in Rochester, NY have included Eastman Ossia, Musica Nova, Eastman Trumpet Ensemble, Eastman Wind Ensemble, Brass Guild, and Eastman Philharmonia. Currently active as a trumpet soloist, interpreter, improvisor, clinician, and chamber musician in New York City area, Cabaoglu has also been a member of European Brass Ensemble based in Stift Melk, Austria. As an ensemble player, he has also performed with Talea Ensemble, Ensemble Échappé, MODbrass, Oratorio Society of New York Orchestra, Presidential Symphony Orchestra, Istanbul State Symphony, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, ensembles at The Cathedral of St.John The Divine, Orchestra of St.Ignatius Loyola, Malmö Trumpet Ensemble, the MIAM Modern Music Ensemble, and a new USA-based project ensemble called The Ritsos Project Ensemble in Samos Island and Athens, Greece. Other performances have brought him to 4 continents, including the countries of Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Australia, Greece, Switzerland, Austria, Kazakistan, Kırgızistan, and Turkey. Some of the conductors he has worked under are James Baker, Tim Weiss, Kent Tritle, James Baker, Jeffrey Milarsky, Charles Hazlewood, Alexander Rahbari, Alexander Rudin, Leif Segerstam, Gürer Aykal, Sascha Goetzel, Michael Ruhling, Mark Davis Scatterday, Alparslan Ertüngealp, K. Scott Warren, Andrew Greenwood, Marek Pijarowki, Ionescu Galati, etc. Cabaoglu has performed world premieres by composers such as Paul Moravec, Behzad Ranjbaran, Erden Bilgen, Turgut Erçetin, Dave Headlam, Recep Gül, Evan Henry, Kamran Ince, Tonia Ko, Leif Segerstam, Michael Ellison, Daniel Pesca, David Riebe, Maxwell Dulaney, Phil Taylor, Jonathan Dawe, Theo Chandler, Nathan Prillaman, Ibrahim Maalouf, and many others. Dr.Cabaoglu gives special emphasis on improvisation and multidisciplinary art by using contemporary and historical sources. His current projects include CABASI, a project collaborating with composer and improvisor Cenk Ergun. In 2018, for composer and trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf, Dr.Cabaoglu has formed a special trumpet section called The Levantine Trumpets, using particularly using quarter-tone trumpets upon Maalouf's request and combining the Middle Eastern and Western styles. The section has recently performed the world premiere of Levantine Symphony No.1 by Maalouf at Kennedy Center, Washington D.C.

Cabaoglu has won awards in international competitions such as the Grand Valley State University International Trumpet Seminar and Solo Trumpet Competition (2nd prize with no 1st prize awarded, 2008), the National Trumpet Competition of Başkent University (1st Prize, 2005), the Lions European Music Prize for Trumpet (Turkish National Winner, 2005), and the Turkish Culture Ministry National Trumpet Competition (2nd Prize, 2000). In 2017, Cabaoglu also been served as a jury member at the Lions European Music Prize, Trumpet Competition. He owns his own music school called Upper East Side Music Studio, in Manhattan, New York City. 

In February 2020, Arda Cabaoglu’s unique durational performance art project called Forced Misophonia: BLAST, BLOW, PULSE was performed by him at Sakıp Sabancı Museum (SSM) during Marina Abramović’s art show curated by Marina Abramović Institute (MAI). As a part of Marina Abramović’s exhibition, Cabaoglu will presented his artwork, where he performed his unique work for 4.5 weeks, 8 hours a day at the SSM, in a specially designed project space. Cabaoglu serves as principal trumpet at New Manhattan Sinfonietta and is a trumpet instructor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, NY, and visiting trumpet professor at Mimar Sinan FineArts University Istanbul State Conservatory.

With a zeal for trumpet pedagogy, Cabaoglu has participated in and attended a vast listing of masterclasses and lessons with notable musicians such as Maurice André, Thomas Stevens, Tristram Williams, Crispian Steele-Perkins, Raymond Mase, Fred Mills, Muvaffak “Maffy” Falay, Paul Dorsam, Vincent DiMartino, Marcus Stockhausen, Gabriele Cassone, Ibrahim Maalouf, Reinhold Friedrich, Stephen Burns, Mark Gould, Edward Carroll, and Wynton Marsalis. He has also pursued baroque trumpet lessons with Dr. Edward Tarr in Rheinfelden, Germany, with Leif Bengtsson and Pierre Thorvald in Sweden, and Brian Shaw at Eastman. Cabaoglu has served for 3 years as instructor of secondary trumpet classes at the Eastman School of Music, for which he was nominated for a graduate teaching award in brass instruction. Students find Cabaoglu’s diverse and highly personalized teaching methods to be effective and inspiring.