A Pianist Without Limits “He is not merely a pianist of genius; undoubtedly he will be one of the great artists of the 21st Century.” (Le Figaro) Concert Program in Japan Albums BIOGRAPHY Born in 1970 in Ankara, Turkey, Fazil Say studied piano and composition at the Ankara State Conservatory. At the age of seventeen he was awarded a scholarship that enabled him to continue his studies with David Levine at the Robert Schumann Institute in Düsseldorf. He completed his musical education at the Berlin Conservatory, where he was a student from 1992 – 1995. In 1994 he was the winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and his international career was launched.

Fazil Say is a regular guest of the New York Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, the Orchestra National de France and many other leading orchestras worldwide. He played, besides many others, the Lucerne Festival, the Verbier Festival, the Montpellier Festival, the Ruhr Piano Festival, the Beethoven Festival Bonn and all leading concert halls like Musikverein Vienna, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall New York, Berlin Philharmie, Wigmore Hall London, Theatre des Champs-Elysses in Paris, to name a few. 2003/4 he will e.g. play his debut at the Salzburg Festival, at the Lincoln Center Festival New York, at the Harrod's Piano Series London and the World Piano Series Tokyo. His partners for chamber music are e.g. Yuri Bashmet, Shlomo Mintz and Akiko Suwanai. Together with violinist Maxim Vengerov he embarks 2004 on a World Tour.

Say's passion for jazz and improvisation led him to found a “worldjazz” quartet with the Turkish Ney virtuoso Kudsi Ergüner. During the summer of 2000 the quartet performed in St. Denis, Paris , and Montpellier, at the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Istanbul Jazz Festival and at the Juan-les-Pin Festival.

Fazil Say is just as much a composer as he is a pianist. Black Hymns, which he composed at the age of sixteen, was performed as part of Berlin's 750th anniversary celebrations. In 1991 he premiered his Concerto for Piano and Violin with the Berlin Symphony, and in 1996 he premiered in Boston his second piano concerto Silk Road. This concerto will be performed in 2003/4 at least a dozen times by various orchestras with Fazil Say as pianist. The Turkish Ministry of Culture commissioned his oratorio Nazim, based on poems by the famous Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet. Nazim was premiered in Ankara in 2001 in the presence of Turkey's president. The world premiere of Say's Piano Concerto No. 3, commissioned by Radio France and Kurt Masur, was performed by the Orchestre National de France in Paris in January, 2002, to great public and critical acclaim. His oratorio “Requiem for Metin Altiok” was premiered 2003 at the Istanbul Festival in front of an audience of 5000 people and has been recorded on CD as before “Nazim”. He composed hilarious Jazz adaptations for piano and orchestra of such works like Mozart's “Alla turca” and “Paganini Jazz”. Currently he works on a violin concerto and a ballet music. 2003 he is appointed “Artist in Residence” by Radio France.

Fazil Say's first recording, a Mozart disc released in 1998, garnered rave reviews from the press. In 1999 he signed an exclusive contract with the Teldec label. His discography includes Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and I Got Rhythm Variations, recorded with the New York Philharmonic and Kurt Masur; further a highly acclaimed Bach recital and Stravinsky's own arrangement of Le Sacre du Printemps for four hands. On the recording Say plays both parts. The Sacre is part of Fazil Say's worldwide success story and played by him in all international concert halls. Say 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. His most recent recording features Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic under Yuri Temirkanov and Franz Liszt's B minor Sonata.

His new CD in connection with a new signing with the prestigious French label Naive will be dedicated completely to his own compositions. In the planning is also a recording of all Brahms violin sonatas with Maxim Vengerov for EMI.