Fazil Say – great pianist
Fazil Say is a genius at writing music and playing the piano. He is one of the most original artists today. He composes and performs, and he does both brilliantly. He is recognized as one of the greatest artists of the twenty-first century. He has created his own style, tempos, and the versions of classical music.
Fazil was born on January 14, 1970, in Ankara, Turkey. Say is the only child in his family. His father is a music critic who publishes music encyclopedias. His mother is a pharmacist. At the age of five, Fazil started piano lessons. His teacher taught him to play without looking at the page and to play with great emotion.
Fazil composed his first piece of music for the piano at the age of seven. Eight-year-old boy performed alone in Ankara.
In 1981, he enrolled at the Ankara State Conservatory and was in a special program for gifted children.
After school he went to Dusseldorf, Germany to continue his music studies.
At sixteen he wrote Black Hymns. In his twenties, Say had signed a contract with Atlantic Records and his first recording was a dedication to Bach and Mozart.
In 1992, he became a teacher at the Berlin Academy. He taught there for three years and continued to perform in France, Germany, Turkey, and Finland.
Say won first prize in the international “Young Concert Artists” contest in New York when he was 25 years old. This award changed his life, launching his international career and making him a star like Emanuel Ax, Murray Perahia, and Pinchas Zukerman.
He gives about 100 concerts worldwide every year. He performs in the world’s leading concert halls including Carnegie Hall and Avery Fischer Hall in New York, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Musikverein, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Suntory Hall in Tokyo. He regularly performs with the New York Philharmonic, the BBC Philharmonic, the Baltimore Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France, and other famous orchestras.
Say also plays in a jazz group that uses Turkish instruments.
Say married his childhood love at twenty-seven after knowing her for eleven years and studying together at the Ankara Conservatory. Their daughter, Kumru, was born in 2000. The couple separated after five years of marriage in2002.
In 2005 he released first sound track for the film Ultima Thule by Swiss director Hans-Ulrich Schlumpf.
In 2006 Fazil signed exclusive and unlimited contract with Shott Music Publishers Mainz.
In 2008, as a duet with Patricia Kopatchinskaja he recorded disc Beethoven, Ravel, Bartok, Say.