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 tour of Europe and the USA with the Russian violinist Maxim Vengerov, and in 2006,
together with the outstanding violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja he founded a Duo.

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 Kopatchinskaja. For their opening weekend 2010, the Salzburg Festival commissioned a piece for piano and orchestra Nirvana Burning and in September 2010 his concerto for trumpet and orchestra was premiered at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival by world renowned trumpetist Gábor Boldoczki.

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. This recording brought him several international awards, including the 2001 EchoPreis Klassik and the German Music Critics’ Best Recording of the Year.
Fall 2005 a new CD was released with sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven, followed in Spring 2007 by a CD with Haydn sonatas. In fall 2008 his new violin concerto was
released as well as a recital CD with Patricia Kopatchinskaja, which was awarded with the
prestigious German Record Award Echo in 2009.

In 2008 he was appointed, together with Paul Cuelho among others, Ambassador of Intercultural Dialogue.

At the Baden-Baden Festival he was playing in February 2010 a Fazil Say Night with 4 piano concertos by Ravel, Mozart, Gershwin and Say, accompanied by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. 2010 he was again guest at the Salzburg Festival with 4 concerts, played at the festivals at Rheingau, Baden-Baden, the Benedetti Michelangeli Festival in Italy, the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, Orange Festival, Athens Festival, the Abu Dhabi Classics and many others.
He was touring worldwide, among others 3 weeks through Japan, France and Spain.