Pannon Philharmonic

The Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say was born in Ankara and studied piano and composition at the state Conservatory of his home city. The seventeen-year-old student was awarded a scholarship enabling him to work for five years with David Levine at the Robert Schumann Institute in Düsseldorf. From 1992 until 1995 he pursued his studies at Berlin Conservatory.

Fazil Say is frequently invited by the New York Philharmonic, the Israeli Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw, the BBC Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France and other leading orchestras throughout the world. He has played at the Ruhr Piano Festival, the festivals of Lucerne, Verbier, Montpellier and Salzburg, and has also performed in many of the world’s prestigious concert halls, such as the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Musikverein, Suntory Hall (Tokyo) and Carnegie Hall. In 2004 Fazil Say undertook a concert our of Europe and the USA with the Russian violinist Maxim Vengerov, and in 2006, together with the outstanding violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaya he founded a Duo. He is also an experienced Jazz musician, playing regularly at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

Fazil Say is equally at home as a composer. In 1991 he produced his Concerto for Piano and Violin, followed by his Second Piano Concerto ‘Silk Road’ five years later. His oratorio Nazim was first performed in Ankara in 2001 and was closely followed by many other compositions, including his Third Piano Concerto in 2002, an oratorio ‘Requiem for Metin Altiok’ in 2003 and a Fourth Piano Concerto in 2005. The same year, Fazil Say also wrote his first film score, followed by further incidental music for Turkish and Japanese films. The city of Vienna commissioned a ballet score ‘Patara’, first performed in 2006. Two years later, the first performance of his Violin Concerto 1001 Nights in the Harem was given in Lucerne by Patricia Kopatchinskaya.

Fazil Say’s discography includes Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the New York Philharmonic and Kurt Masur, a Bach recital, and Stravinsky’s arrangement of the Rite of Spring for four hands, in which Say plays both parts himself. This recording brought him several international awards, including the 2001 EchoPreis Klassik and the German Music Critics’ Best Recording of the Year. His first recording with the French firm Naïve is entirely devoted to his own music and the second includes three Mozart Concertos with the Zürich Chamber Orchestra conducted by Howard Griffiths A CD of Beethoven Piano Sonatas was released in 2005, followed by another in 2007, this time with a selection of Haydn Sonatas. The following year, Fazil Say was nominated by the European Union as an ambassador for inter-cultural exchange.