Newswire | Fazil Say to Headline Pro Musica’s First Cartes Blanches Concert

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Montreal, January 8, 2024 – Pro Musica is delighted to present a recital by Fazil Say, virtuoso pianist, composer and performer, as the headliner of its first concert in the Cartes Blanches series, on January 21^st at Salle Pierre-Mercure. Originally from Turkey, this musician has captivated music lovers the world over. For over 25 years, he has toured in Germany, Italy, Israel, the USA, China, Japan and South Africa. His performances as a guest artist, and as a chamber musician, have taken hiḿ to five continents.

Program : Symphonic piano – Fazil Say

Claude Debussy
Preludes – livre I, L.117 : Suite bergamasque, L. 75 : III. Clair de lune

Ludwig Van Beethoven
Sonata no. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 “Appassionata”

Johann Sebastian Bach / Franz Liszt
Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543

Richard Wagner / Franz Liszt
Isoldes Liebestod

Fazil Say
Black Earth

Fazil Say received his first piano lessons from Mithat Fenmen (1916-1982), a pianist who had studied with Alfred Cortot in Paris. He won the “Young Concert Artists” international competition in New York in 1994, which marked the start of his international career. Since then, he has performed with all the leading orchestras of America and Europe, and with many great conductors, developing a varied repertoire ranging from Bach to Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, as well as Romantic and contemporary music, including his own piano compositions.

With violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, for example (whom Pro Musica hosted in concert on March 31^st, 2019), he has formed a fantastic duo for years; other notable partners have included Maxim Vengerov, the Minetti Quartet, the Modigliani Quartet, Nicolas Altstaedt and Marianne Crebassa. In 2013, Fazil Say was awarded the Rheingau Music Prize and, in December 2016, in Bonn, the International Beethoven Prize for Human Rights, Peace, Freedom, Poverty Alleviation and Inclusion. In autumn 2017, he was awarded the Music Prize of the City of Duisburg.

As a composer, Fazil Say has received commissions from prestigious institutions such as the Salzburg Festival, WDR, Münchner Philharmoniker, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Music Festival, Wiener Konzerthaus, the Dresdner Philharmonie, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Dresdner Philharmonie, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the BBC. His compositions include five symphonies, two oratorios, various concertos and numerous works for piano and chamber music. the BBC. His compositions include five symphonies, two oratorios, various concertos and numerous works for piano and chamber music.

Warner Classics has released the recording of all Mozart sonatas, for which Fazil Say received his fourth ECHO KLASSIK in 2017, and the following year, Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturnes and the album “Secrets” with French songs, recorded in collaboration with Marianne Crebassa, which won the Gramophone Classical Music Award in 2018.