FAZIL SAY PERFORMS IN HAMBURG
HAMBURG - Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say gave
a concert in Hamburg on Thursday evening.
He performed at Fabrik auditorium within the scope of his concerts series as "Fazil Say-Turkish Nights".
Fazil Say, born in 1970, is just as much a composer as he is a pianist. At the age of seventeen he was awarded a scholarship that enabled him to study for five years with David Levine at the Robert Schumann Institute in Dusseldorf.
He wrote the work Black Hymns at the age of sixteen. In 1991 he premiered his Concerto for Piano and Violin with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, and in 1996 his second piano concerto Silk Road was given its first performance in Boston.
From 1992 to 1995 he continued his studies at the Berlin Conservatory. In 1994 he was the winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, which gave a rapid start to his international career.
His oratorio Nazim, based on poems by the famous Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet and commissioned by the Turkish Ministry of Culture, was premiered in Ankara in 2001. He has composed highly virtuosic adaptations for piano and orchestra of such works as Mozart's Rondo alla turca and Paganini Jazz.
Say is a regular guest with the New York Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic, the Baltimore Symphony, the St Petersburg Philharmonic, the BBC Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France and other leading orchestras across the globe.