Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Mixael presents

BravoBrava’s Personality of the Week has been described by the French newspaper, Le Figaro, as not merely a pianist of genius but undoubtedly one of the great artists of the twenty-first century. On unanimous public request, this great pianist and also composer of repute, and, as he has been called: an unsurpassed audience magnet and charmer, during his second tour of South Africa, played the second of three concerts with yet another triumphant performance last night at the Linder Auditorium in Johannesburg.

Last week, we spoke to him on the stage of the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town, just prior to his recital there.

Tonight we chat to him, and you , the listener, from BravoBrava’s Auckland Park studios in Johannesburg.

Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say

Born in 1970 in Ankara, Turkey, Fazıl Say studied piano and composition at the Ankara State Conservatory. At the age of seventeen he was awarded a scholarship that enabled him to study at the Robert Schumann Institute in Düsseldorf. 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.

Fazıl Say is since a regular guest with the New York Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic, the St Petersburg Philharmonic, the BBC Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France and other leading orchestras across the globe. He has appeared at all leading festivals and concert halls, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Musikverein, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall in New York.

Say’s passion for jazz and improvisation led him to found a ‘Worldjazz’ quartet with the Turkish ney virtuoso Kudsi Ergüner. The quartet has performed to a triumphal reception in St. Denis, Paris, Montpellier, at the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Istanbul Jazz Festival and the Juan-les-Pins Festival. In 2005 he made a return visit to Montreux appearing a.o. with Bobby McFerrin.

Fazıl Say the composer 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. 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 in the presence of Turkey’s President. Say gave the world premiere of his Piano Concerto no. 3 in Paris with the Orchestre National de France in January 2002.

His oratorio Requiem for Metin Altiok was premiered in 2003 at the Istanbul Festival. He has composed highly virtuosic adaptations for piano and orchestra of such works as Mozart’s Rondo alla turca and Paganini Jazz. The city of Vienna commissioned a ballet for Mozart Year, which was given its first performance there in 2006. He also wrote a new solo piece for the 2006 Salzburg Festival, Inside Serail.

In 2003 he was appointed ‘Artist in Residence’ by Radio France, a position he also holds at the 2005 Bremen Festival as well as – over the next 5 years – at the Konzerthaus in Dortmund.

Fazıl Say’s first recording, a Mozart disc released in 1998, garnered rave reviews from the press. His discography includes Gershwin’s 'Rhapsody in Blue' and 'I Got Rhythm Variations' with the New York Philharmonic and Kurt Masur, a Bach recital, and Stravinsky’s own arrangement of Le Sacre du Printemps for four hands (in which Say plays both parts). He has received numerous international awards for this recording, including the 2001 Echo-Preis Klassik and the 2001 German Music Critics’ Best Recording of the Year Award. Another of his recordings couples Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no.1 (with the St Petersburg Philharmonic under Yuri Temirkanov) and Franz Liszt’s Piano Sonata.

His first recording under a new contract with Naïve, exclusively devoted to his own works, attracted international attention. The second, acclaimed worldwide as a significant Mozart release, presents three of that composer’s concertos with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra under Howard Griffiths. In 2005 a new CD was released with sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven, followed in 2007 by a CD with Haydn sonatas.

In the summer of 2005 the Franco-German television channel Arte shot a full-length portrait of Fazil Say which was broadcasted in early 2006. In 2005 a DVD production of his work for chorus and orchestra Nazim was filmed in Aspendos and released in Fall 2006.

Please revert to http://www.fazilsay.net/ for more information.