TURKISH PIANIST MAKES WORLD PREMIER OF HIS SYMPHONY IN GERMANY

Turkey's world-known pianist and composer Fazil Say premiered his "Istanbul Symphony" at Konzerthaus in Dortmund, Germany.
Before his symphony, Say played "Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin and "Candide" by Leonard Bernstein.
The symphony, in which Fazil Say composed beauties of Istanbul, took the stage within the activities of "Germany Rhur 2010 European Capital of Culture" in Dortmund Konzerthous.
The symphony comprised of the sections, ''Nostalgia'', ''Religious Order'', ''Blue Mosque'', ''Merrily Clad Young Ladies Aboard the Ferry to de Princes Islands'', ''About the Travellers to Anatolia Departing from the Haydar Pasha Train Station'', ''Carousal Night'' and ''Finale''.
Say received a huge ovation from the German audience at the end of his performance.
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.