Fazıl Say (born on Jan. 14, 1970 in Ankara, Turkey) is a Turkish pianist and composer known as one of the most talented pianists in the world. The artist boasts a large fan base both at home and abroad, and has already made his mark on the global classical music scene with his unique playing technique.
EARLY LIFE
Say was born in Ankara as the only son of author and music writer Ahmet Say and pharmacist Ayşe Gürgün Say. Ahmet was a renowned left-wing publisher and intellectual, actively taking part in the socialist Workers Party of Turkey (TİP) and issuing columns in several newspapers and magazines. He completed his studies in Germany in the 1950s. Ahmet’s mathematics teacher, his father Fazıl, was also educated in Germany 1910s and became a member of the Spartakist movement of Rosa Luxembourg. Ahmet was also a prominent musicologist, issuing a trove of work including Music Encyclopedia, as well as teaching and instruction books and critiques. In addition to her professional and academic career as a pharmacist, Ayşe Gürgün was a leading secular and republican activist and author who was among the founders of Association for the Support of Contemporary Living (ÇYDD), an NGO focused on girls’ education.
Fazıl was born with a cleft lip and underwent an operation when he was just a year and a half old. His doctor suggested he learn the melodica for recovery, introducing young Say with the keyboard at a very early age. When obua performer Ali Kemal Kaya, a friend of Ahmet, heard Fazıl was able to play some easy tunes at a very young age, he began training the child using simple techniques.
Fazıl’s parents divorced when he was four years old, about the same time he started training on the piano. His instructor was the famed pianist and composer Mithat Fenmen, who himself was a child prodigy who studied in Europe and was trained by French pianist Alfred Cortot. Having trained many talented Turkish piano performers such as İdil Biret, Selman Ada, Süher and Güher Pekinel, and Gülsin Onay, Fenmen paid special attention to improvisation and composition during Say’s training. From the early days of his piano career, Say was regarded as a significant talent and became known in music circles. One of his earliest introductions to the public was in 1979, when he played for state broadcaster TRT for the April 23 Children’s Day festivities.
The young pianist was admitted to the Ankara State Conservatory in 1982, the same year Fenmen passed away, under the scope of a special education program for child prodigies, completing his undergraduate studies in piano with Kamuran Gündemir and composition with İlhan Baran in 1987. At the age of 14, he made his first compositions.
During a visit to Ankara in 1986, German composer Aribert Reimann heard Say playing at the conservatory and called on to American pianist David Levine to come and have a look. This encounter paved the way for his later studies, as Say followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and traveled to Germany on a DAAD state scholarship. He was admitted to the Musikhochschule “Robert Schumann” in Düsseldorf in 1987 and started training as a classical pianist with Levine, while taking master classes from Israeli-American pianist Menahem Pressler. The same year, he wrote “Schwarze Hymnen” (Black Hymns) for violin and piano, which he performed in the German capital as part of large-scale pre-unification festivities of 750 Years of Berlin.
In 1991, Say graduated as a concert pianist and settled in Berlin, where he started working as a piano instructor and composer at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) until 1995. He performed in concerts and recitals throughout Germany.
INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
In Sept. 1994, Say won the European Young Concert Artists competition held in Leipzig, Germany. With his performance of “The Four Dances of Nasreddin Hoca for Piano” (1990), which he designated as his Opus 1. Say went on to win the Young Concert Artists international competition in New York in 1994, which introduced him to the U.S. audience and also marked the beginning of his global career. These awards marked the first of numerous honors dedicated to Say throughout his career alongside Paul A. Fish Foundation Awards (1995), Le Monde Awards (2000), Echo Klassik (2001), German Music Critics’ Best Recording of the Year Award (2001), Echo German Record Award (2009), ECHO Klassik 2013 Special Jury Award with Istanbul Symphony Album, Beethoven Prize 2016 (Beethoven Academy), and Duisburger Musikpreis (2017).
In 1995, Say settled in New York and resumed his career with performances alongside distinguished institutions including the likes of the New York Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, Orchester National de France, and Vienna Symphony. During this period, he attended various festivals including the Salzburg Festival, Lincoln Center Festival, Lucerne Festival, Ruhr Piano Festival, Rheingau Music Festival and Verbier Festival, the Montpellier Festival, and the Beethovenfest Bonn, along with performances at the International Piano Series in London and at the World Piano Series Tokyo.
The pianist was also artist or composer in residence in various institutions, including Radio France in 2003 and 2005, Musikfest Bremen in 2005, Konzerthaus Dortmund between 2005 and 2010, Sumida Triphony Hall – Tokyo in 2008, Merano Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées – Paris, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg in 2010, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in 2011, Konzerthaus Berlin between 2010 and 2011, Hessischer Rundfunk Frankfurt between 2012 and 2013, Wiener Konzerthaus between 2013 and 2014, Bodenseefestival in 2014, Laeiszhalle Hamburg between 2014 and 2015, and Alte Oper Frankfurt between 2015 and 2016. Say was the artist in residence at the Festival der Nationen in Bad Wörishofen and was the composer in residence at the Dresdner Philharmonie in between 2018 and 2019.
BLENDING TURKISH, WESTERN CLASSICAL MUSIC
Throughout his career, Say has excelled as a performer for classical works composed by various influential names and their interpretations or adaptations, including works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt, Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, George Gershwin, Maurice Ravel, Bela Bartok, Modest Mussorgsky, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Johann Sebastian Bach, Joseph Haydn, Richard Wagner, and Frederic Chopin.
As displayed in the main subject of his Opus 1, a 13th-century Turkic Sufi philosopher and satirist that has become a part of folk culture from Central Asia to the Balkans, Say put a special emphasis in blending local motifs from Anatolia and Turkey with the Western classical music, using maqams from Turkish classical, Sufi and folk music. Say’s 1997 “Black Earth for Piano/Opus 8” is a highly-praised adaptation of prominent 20th-century Turkish bard Aşık Veysel’s iconic folk song “Kara Toprak,” while the pianist also issued “Rhapsodia ‘Uzun İnce Yoldayım’”/Opus 14” in 2004 based on Veysel’s namesake song, a staple of Turkish folk music.
Local instruments such as darbuka, ney, or kudüm were often featured in Say’s works. His 2011 “Hezarfen Concerto for Ney and orchestra/Opus 39” is a unique and rare classical music composition for ney, an end-blown woodwind instrument used commonly in Middle Eastern music. The work itself was inspired by Hezarfen Ahmet Çelebi, a 17th-century Ottoman scientist and inventor often credited for performing a non-powered flight over the Bosporus.
Upon the request of Turkish Ministry of Culture, Say composed the “Nazım Oratorio/Opus 9” in 2001 in memoriam of Nazım Hikmet, a leading name of modern Turkish poetry for his skillful use of the language, along with international recognition for his emphasis on revolutionary and anti-imperialist themes. Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the 1993 Sivas Massacre, in which mostly Alevi and left-wing intellectuals were burned to death in a radical mob attack, he wrote the “Metin Altıok Ağıtı/Opus 13” as a requiem for the Turkish poet and writer. Altıok, a friend of Say’s father Ahmet, was one of the 35 victims of the incident.
Perhaps one of Say’s most popular works was the “1993 Alla Turca Jazz (Mozart)/Opus 5a,” a jazz adaptation of the third movement of “Alla Turca,” also known as “Turkish March,” in Wolfgang Amadues Mozart’s “Piano Sonata No. 11.” Marking one of the most significant works of the larger “Turquerie” fashion that dominated Europe between 16th and 18th centuries, Mozart’s highly-popular work itself was inspired by “mehter” military band of Ottoman janissary soldiers. In a rare television commercial throughout his career, Say was joined by pop singer and soprano Sertab Erener in 2001 to perform his adaptation, making him a household name in the country upon the commercial’s huge success. Two of his jazz adaptations, “Yeni bir Gülnihal Jazz Variations for Piano/Opus 5f” in 1997 and “Ver. Red. 2; Yeni bir Gülnihal Jazz Var. Klavier Auszug,” in 2010 are unique works blending contemporary forms with “Yine bir Gülnihal,” a well-known waltz-resembling song penned by Dede Efendi, a 19th century composer credited as the bedrock of Turkish classical music and prominent member of Mevlevi order. Say also had various jazz compositions and issued jazz adaptations of some works by Italian violinist and composer Niccolo Paganini.
For his 2006 composition “İnsan İnsan film music/Opus 22,” based on verses penned by 16th century Bektashi Sufi poet Muhyiddin Abdal, Say collaborated with vocalist and musician Cem Adrian, tenor Güvenç Dağüstün and sopranos Burcu Uyar and Selva Erdener. The song was featured in several movies and TV series, and continues to be exceptionally popular among young audiences. “İnsan İnsan” was also featured in Say’s 2013 album “İlk Şarkılar,” which also featured compositions based on poems by 12th-century polymath and poet Omar Khayyam, leading 16th-century Alevi-Bektashi Sufi thinker Pir Sultan Abdal, and contemporary Turkish poets such as Hikmet, Altıok, Cemal Süreya, Orhan Veli Kanık, and Can Yücel. For this album, Say collaborated with soloist Serenad Bağcan, the nephew of renowned Turkish folk, psychedelic, and protest rock musician Selda Bağcan. The duo renewed their cooperation in in 2015 album “Yeni Şarkılar,” in which Say’s works from Opus 57 to Opus 61 were compiled. Along with those of Khayyam, Hikmet, and Süreya, poems by Edip Cansever and Turgut Uyar were also featured in this five-track album.
Say paid another homage to Turkish poets in 2017 album “Güz Şarkıları (Autumn Songs)/Opus 71,” which featured Dağüstün as soloist and fellow pianist Ece Dağıstan. Poems by Ece Ayhan, Behçet Aysan, Ahmed Arif, and Atilla İlhan, along with Hikmet, Süreya and Yücel, were included in this 10-track album.
In 2007, Say issued “1001 Nights in a Harem Violin Concerto/Opus 25,” which turned into one of his highly-praised works. The world premiere of the composition was performed by Patricia Kopatchinskaja, a Moldovan-Austrian-Swiss violinist who has collaborated with Say in a permanent chamber music duo. Maxim Vengerov, Yuri Bashmet, Shlomo Mintz, the Minetti Quartet, Nicolas Altstaedt, Sabine Meyer and Marianne Crebassa were some other names that Say collaborated in chamber music during his career. The artist was designated as “Ambassador of Intercultural Dialogue” by the European Union in 2008.
Say was artist in residence at the Konzerthaus Dortmund between 2005 and 2010, when he premiered his first symphony, “İstanbul Symphony/Opus 28 (2009).” His second symphony, “Mesopotamia,” written per the request of Istanbul Music Festival, was premiered in the megapolis in June 2012. The same year, Say wrote “Symphony No.3 ‘Universe’/Opus 43,” and his fourth symphony, “Hope/Opus 74,” came in 2017.
In 2015, Say founded the “Nazım Hikmet Choir,” which included some 55 opera soloists and assumed the choir’s general music directorship. The choir performed in various events throughout Turkey and remains active to this date.
Since 2016, Say has been signed to the Warner Classics label, while his entire oeuvre is being published by prominent Schott Music based in Mainz, Germany.
In 2021, Say announced his intention to bring together some 100 songs in a recording project titled “Works of Turkish Composers” to pay homage to leading figures of the country’s music scene.
In addition to his musical career, Say has penned five books, Uçak Notları (Airplane Notes) (1999), Metin Altıok Ağıtı (Lament of Metin Altiok) (2008), Yalnızlık Kederi (The Sorrow of Lonliness) (2009), Akılla Bir Konuşmam Oldu (I had a Conversation with the Mind) (2017), and Suya Yazılan (Written on Water) (2020), all of which featuring essays on Say life, career and political views.
POLITICAL ACTIVISM AND PUBLIC ROWS
Hailing from a politically active family, Say has been an outspoken critic of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which has carried the elections in Turkey since 2002. Say has repeatedly accused the ruling party of eroding republican and secular values and has been involved in highly-publicized debates with several cabinet ministers, including the current President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, while he was serving as Prime Minister.
In July 2010, Say issued a controversial message on his Facebook page about Turkish popular music genre “Arabesque,” which involves Oriental tunes and themes of heavily dramatized love, melancholy, pain, or poverty. Harshly criticizing the genre and the public, Say sparked a heated debate with artists and followers in which he himself was accused of insulting the public and holding an elitist stance.
In 2012, Say posted a series of tweets, in which he came forward as an atheist and controversially scrutinized political Islam and the concept of heaven in Islam, along with a rubai poem attributed to Khayyam. The posts sparked a public debate, and Say was sued on the grounds of blasphemy and insulting the public, on which he was sentenced to 10 months in prison by a Turkish court in April 2013, with his deferred sentence making headlines throughout the world. Two years later, the Supreme Court of Appeals overturned Say’s conviction citing freedom of thought and expression.
Say was among numerous Turkish artists that supported the Gezi Park protests in June 2013, which began as a small environmental and urban conservationist movement that later turned into nationwide anti-government protests over suppression and police violence. In 2013 and 2014, he wrote Gezi Park 1, 2, and 3 (Opus 48, Opus 52, and Opus 54) to support the movement and performed these pieces in various venues. In 2015, Say’s political stance was awarded with the “Prix International de la Laïcité” issued by “Comité Laïcité République” in France.
In late August 2018, Say’s mother, Ayşe Gürgün, passed away after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Her death also marked a somewhat political thaw, as President Erdoğan and a couple of cabinet ministers called Say to convey their condolences, to which the pianist publicly acknowledged his gratitude. On Jan. 18, 2019, President Erdoğan, first lady Emine Erdoğan, high-ranking Turkish officials, and U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham, who was in Ankara for a visit at the time, attended a concert of Say. During the concert, Say performed the “Troy/Opus 78” sonata written for the ancient city of Troy and the epic battle in 2018, which Turkey had officially declared as The Year of Troy, along with “İzmir Suite”/Opus 79,” (2018) written by Say upon the request of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality and includes reflections from the “İzmir March,” a popular wartime song that gained popularity as the opposition’s anthem in recent years. Following the concert, Say was subject to criticism by President Erdoğan’s opponents, to which the pianist responded as he had done what is necessary to overcome increasing polarization in society and open the way for reconciliation, later revealing that he became introverted due to heavy and unfair criticism, while the president remarked that Say had proved himself in the international scene and he can only take pride in his success. Say maintains his political views and continues his vocal stance on various public issues.
PERSONAL LIFE
In 1999, Say married cellist Gülyar Balcı, and the couple has one daughter, Kumru, born in 2000. Following the 9/11 attacks, they decided to leave New York for Istanbul. The couple divorced in 2004, with Say creating his 2010 “String Quartet/Opus 29” titled “Boşanmak” (Divorce). Kumru currently studies in Germany and is a talented equestrian, competing on the Turkish national team. In Jan. 2019, Say married fellow pianist Ece Dağıstan at the Turkish consulate-general in Milan, Italy. Say is known as a fervent fan of Turkish football giants Fenerbahçe, often sharing his thoughts and emotions on the club’s performance on his social media accounts. In 2007, he composed “Fenerbahçe Project/Opus 23” for the centenary of the Istanbul-based club.
FURTHER READING
- Fazıl Say, personal web page. Biography. Accessed on April 17, 2021.
- Fazıl Say, artist profile. Accessed on April 17, 2021. İKSV.
- Fazıl Say, alumni portrait. Accessed on April 17, 2021. DAAD.
- Fazıl Say, author. Accessed on April 17, 2021. Schott Music.
- Ahmet Say, personal web page. Accessed on April 17, 2021.
- Ahmet Say, honor awards, profile. Accessed on April 17, 2021. İKSV.
- Say, A. (Oct. 15, 2016). Fazıl Say nasıl yetişti. Sol.
- Mehter takımlı evlilik reklamı. Dec. 09, 2001. Hürriyet.
- Bildirici, F. (Nov. 18, 2012). Devrik rönesansın çocuğu Fazıl Say. Hürriyet.
- Miraç, Z. (Nov. 1, 2015). Boşver diyemiyor. Cumhuriyet.
- Benli, Hasan M. (Oct. 26, 2015.) Top appeals court reverses blasphemy decision against Turkish pianist Say. Hürriyet Daily News.
- Fazıl Say: Sanatımı Türkiye’de yapmak istiyorum. July 13, 2018. Deutsche Welle Türkçe.
- President Erdoğan presents famous Turkish pianist Fazıl Say with plaque at concert. Jan. 18, 2019. Daily Sabah.
- Fazıl Say’dan, Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan ile görüşmesine ilişkin açıklama. Jan. 22, 2019. Hürriyet.
- Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan: Fazıl Say ile iftihar etmeliyiz. Jan. 25, 2019. Yeni Şafak.
- Fazıl Say: I kept to myself for months. Sept. 17, 2019. Duvar English.
- Fazıl Say showcases Turkish music history with new project. March 08, 2021. Daily Sabah.
- Pianist Fazıl Say ties the knot with Ece Dağıstan at Turkish consulate in Milan. Jan. 25, 2019. Daily Sabah.