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Fazıl Say

Piano

SUNDAY CONCERTS

International Student House of Washington DC, 1825 R Street, NW.

Tickets are $40, $20 for members and students with ID, and free for youth, ages 8-18 with reservation (please present ID at will call); museum admission for that day is included. Advance reservations are strongly recommended.

Members: please sign in to receive member discount, which will be applied at checkout.

Concert sold out? You’ve got options! Check our website on Fridays at 5 pm for available rush tickets. Standby Tickets may become available (credit card only) at the entrance to the International Student House.

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Program

Described by Le Figaro as “a pianist of genius,” FazIl Say was born in Ankara, Turkey, in 1970 and completed his studies in Düsseldorf and Berlin. He has performed all over the world but has worked extensively in Germany—as an artist in residence for Hessischer Rundfunk (Frankfurt), at the Rheingau Music Festival, and in 2015/2016 at the Alte Oper Frankfurt. His recital at the Phillips includes a group of Chopin Nocturnes, Beethoven’s last Piano Sonata Op. 111, Mozart’s Sonata No. 11 in A Major (which includes the notorious Rondo alla Turca), and Say’s own Gezi Park 2: Sonata for Piano, a major new work commissioned by the Vienna Konzerthaus and first performed there by the composer in 2014.

PROGRAM:

FRYDERYK CHOPIN (1810-49)
Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72 No. 1, CT 126
Nocturne in C-sharp minor (“Lento con gran espressione”), CT 127
Nocturne in C minor, CT 128

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111
     Maestoso - Allegro con brio ed appassionato
     Arietta: Adagio molto semplice cantabile

INTERMISSION

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-91)
Piano Sonata No. 11 in A Major (“Alla Turca”), K. 331
     Tema con variazione
     Menuetto & trio
     Alla Turca

FAZIL SAY (b. 1970)
Gezi Park 2 Sonata for Piano, Op. 52 

About the Artist

With his extraordinary pianistic talents, Fazıl Say has been reaching audiences and critics alike for more than 25 years, in a way that has become rare in the increasingly materialistic and elaborately organized classical music world. Concerts with Say are something different. They are more direct, open, and exciting; in short, they go straight to the heart. Which is exactly what the composer Aribert Reimann thought in 1986 when, during a visit to Ankara, had the opportunity to appreciate the playing of the then 16-year-old pianist. He immediately asked the American pianist David Levine, who was accompanying him on the trip, to come to the city’s conservatory, using the now much-quoted words: “You absolutely must hear him, this boy plays like a devil.”

Say had his first piano lessons with Mithat Fenmen, who had himself studied with Alfred Cortot in Paris. Perhaps sensing just how talented his pupil was, Fenmen asked the boy to improvise every day on themes to do with his daily life before going on to complete his essential piano exercises and studies. This contact with free creative processes and forms is seen as the source of the immense improvisatory talent and the aesthetic outlook that make Say the pianist and composer he is today. He has been commissioned to write music for, among others, the Salzburg Festival, WDR, Dortmund Konzerthaus, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern festivals. His work includes compositions for solo keyboard, chamber music, as well as solo concertos and large-scale orchestral works.

From 1987 onwards, Say fine-tuned his skills as a classical pianist with David Levine, first at the Musikhochschule Robert Schumann in Düsseldorf and later in Berlin. In addition, he regularly attended master classes with Menahem Pressler. His outstanding technique very quickly enabled him to master the so-called warhorses of repertoire with masterful ease. It is precisely this blend of refinement (in Bach, Haydn, and Mozart) and virtuoso brilliance in the works of Liszt, Mussorgsky, and Beethoven that gained him victory at the New York Young Concert Artists International Competition in 1994. Since then he has played with all of the renowned American and European orchestras, including numerous leading conductors, building up a multifaceted repertoire ranging from Bach, through the Viennese classics and Romantics, right up to contemporary music, including his own piano compositions.

Guest appearances have taken Say to countless countries on all five continents; Le Figaro called him “a genius.” He also performs chamber music regularly: for many years he was part of a fantastic duo with the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Other notable collaborators include Maxim Vengerov, the Minetti Quartet, Nicolas Altstaedt, and Marianne Crebassa.

From 2005-10, he was Artist-in-Residence at the Dortmund Konzerthaus; during the 2010/2011 season he held the same position at the Berlin Konzerthaus. Say was also a focal point of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in the summer of 2011. There have been further residencies and Say festivals in Paris, Tokyo, Meran, Hamburg, and Istanbul. During the 2012/2013 season Say was Artist-in-Residence at the Hessischer Rundfunk in Frankfurt am Main and at the Rheingau Musik Festival 2013, where he was awarded the Rheingau Musik Preis. In April 2015, Say gave a successful concert with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall that was followed by an extensive European tour. In 2014 he was the Artist-in-Residence at the Bodenseefestival, where he played 14 concerts. During their 2015/2016 season the Alte Oper Frankfurt and the Zürcher Kammerorchester invited him to be their Artist-in-Residence. Say’s current residency is with the Festival der Nationen in Bad Wörishofen.

In December 2016, Say was awarded the International Beethoven Prize for Human Rights, Peace, Freedom, Poverty Reduction, and Inclusion, in Bonn. In the autumn of 2017, he was awarded the Music Prize of the city of Duisburg.

His recordings of works by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Gershwin, and Stravinsky have been highly praised by critics and won several prizes, including three ECHO Klassik Awards. In 2014, his recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (with hr-Sinfonieorchester and conductor, Gianandrea Noseda) and Beethoven’s Sonatas Op. 111 and Op. 27/2 “Moonlight” was released, as well as the album Say plays Say, featuring his compositions for piano. Since 2016, Say has been an exclusive Warner Classics artist. In the autumn of 2016, his recording of all of Mozart sonatas was released on the label, for which, in 2017, Say received his fourth ECHO Klassik award. Together with Nicolas Altstaedt, he recorded the album 4 Cities (2017). In autumn 2017 Warner Classics will release Nocturnes by Frédéric Chopin and the album Secrets, featuring French songs which he recorded together with Marianne Crebassa.

Watch & Listen

Watch & Listen