Brenna MacCrimmon

About

The artist

Brenna MacCrimmon is a Toronto-based singer, musician, educator, and interpreter of Turkish and Balkan music. Her engagement with those traditions began in 1983 after she encountered Turkish records in a local library collection. She later studied and performed in Turkey and the United States, including work with Selim Sesler, Muammer Ketencoğlu, Baba Zula, Shantel, and the Bucovina Club Orkestar. Her recordings include Karşılama with Sesler, Ayde Mori with Ketencoğlu, Sumru Ağıryürüyen, and Cevdet Erek, and Kulak Misafiri. In Canada, MacCrimmon performs with the Toronto vocal quartet Turkwaz and has worked across theatre, film, workshops, and multidisciplinary performance. Turkwaz's album Nazar received a 2017 JUNO Award nomination for World Music Album of the Year. Fleming College's faculty profile, revised in July 2025, identifies MacCrimmon as Toronto-based and documents recent work with Luminato and Amsterdam Klezmer Band. A new two-song single, Ayde Mori Sığmayanlar, arrived in January 2026. Across her solo and collaborative work, she connects close study of regional repertoire with an active Toronto practice in performance and teaching.