Fazil Say - Piano genius
BERLIN SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA
ORCHESTRA
Dubai, UAE
The 2024 InClassica International Music Festival, organised by SAMIT Event Group, continues on Monday 5th February, as Turkish pianist Fazil Say, a recipient of the Music Prize of the city of Duisburg (2017) and International Beethoven Prize for Human Rights, Peace, Freedom, Poverty Reduction and Inclusion, and four-time ECHO Klassik Award-winner, takes to the stage of Dubai Opera for a classical concert that will also feature the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and Armenian conductor Sergey Smbatyan. The evening will open with Danse Macabre, a legendary tone poem written in 1874 by Camille Saint-Saëns that depicts Death dancing with his various minions on Halloween. Starting its life in 1872 as an art song for voice and piano, the piece would be reworked in 1874, with the vocal line replaced by the solo violin part. Another work by Saint-Saëns will come next, namely his Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, an 1868 work that was remarkably written in only three weeks, but which has gone on to become easily one of the composer’s most popular concertos. Following this, Smbatyan and the orchestra will then turn to Johannes Brahms for their final piece, presenting their interpretation of his celebrated Symphony No. 4 in E minor, an 1885 work in four movements that would prove to be the last of the German composer’s symphonies.
Sergey Smbatyan is the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra and the Principal Conductor of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra. An avid popularizer of classical music, the conductor has an extensive international engagement, and is committed to rejuvenating the classical music audiences and the promotion of contemporary classical music globally.
Born into a family of musicians, Sergey Smbatyan took his first steps in the world of classical music under the guidance of her grandmother Tatyana Hayrapetyan, a distinguished violin teacher, followed by his education at Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan and Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory.
Subsequently, in 2012, he furthered his academic journey at the Royal Academy of Music, studying under Sir Colin Davis. His studies under the guidance of Riccardo Muti and Valery Gergiev significantly influenced and enhanced his proficiency in conducting.
Sergey Smbatyan's conducting career was highlighted by his debut performance with the London Symphony Orchestra at Windsor Castle, under the auspices of Prince Charles, now HRH Charles III. The impressive success of this concert led to a subsequent invitation, where he conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra at Buckingham Palace.
Sergey Smbatyan's extensive international involvement as a conductor and his distinctive appreciation for contemporary classical music has led to a wide array of collaborations with globally acclaimed composers, such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Tigran Mansuryan, Arvo Pärt, Gia Kancheli, and many others. Among such notable endeavors were the large-scale projects conducted with John Malkovich in several countries of Latin America and Asia. Led by Sergey Smbatyan and accompanied by the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, the iconic Hollywood artist delivered a unique musical performance in Yerevan, presenting a reading of excerpts from “The Book of Lamentations” by the medieval Armenian poet Grigor Narekatsi.
The conductor serves as the artistic director of a number of annual music festivals, as well as the Khachaturian International Competition, to which the category of conducting was introduced through Sergey Smbatyan's initiative. Among the festivals founded by Sergey Smbatyan are the Khachaturian International Festival, which aims to uphold the legacy of Aram Khachaturian and other famous Armenian composers, the "Armenia" International Music Festival, which hosts world-renowned virtuoso musicians to perform in Armenia, the Penderecki Contemporary Music Festival, which showcases the works of contemporary legendary composers, and others.
Sergey Smbatyan is the founder of the "Music for Future Foundation (M4FF)”, which is committed to discovering young talented musicians and fostering their career advancement.
He strives to champion innovative approaches in the classical music industry, consistently seeking creative ideas and solutions in implementing various projects. During the opening ceremony of "WCIT 2019," the largest IT Congress for innovators and entrepreneurs, hosted in Armenia, an international orchestra performed an AI real-time-composed musical piece under the direction of Sergey Smbatyan.
Sergey Smbatyan releases recordings with the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra on their own "ArmSymphony Records" label and is actively involved in recording contemporary classical music with the London Symphony Orchestra and other orchestras. His recent engagements include the album of spiritual music "Ave Maria" recorded with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra and the world-renowned tenor Joseph Calleja, released under the "DECCA Records" label, the album “Aznavouriana” by Deutsche Grammophon with the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra and cellist Camille Thomas in commemoration of French-Armenian singer and composer Charles Aznavour’s 100th anniversary.
In recent concert seasons, Sergey Smbatyan has served as a guest conductor with leading orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Mariinsky Theater Symphony Orchestra, the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, and many others.
As the conductor of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, Sergey Smbatyan embarked on numerous concert tours and performed at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the Munich’s Gasteig , Vienna’s Musikverein, the Berliner Philharmonie, and other renowned concert halls.
In 2023, he led the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra on a grand UK tour, dedicated to Aram Khachaturian’s 120th anniversary and in 2024 on the orchestra’s debut tour in the United States with the performances at Boston’s Symphony Hall, New York City’s Carnegie Hall, and Los Angeles Music Center’s Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Highlights of 2024/25 season include concerts with the Madrid Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ontario Philharmonic Orchestra, the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra as well as performances at Salle Gaveau and the Cité de la Musique of the Paris Philharmonie with the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra featuring French and Armenian composers.
Up until the 2024/25 season, Sergey Smbatyan will be Principal Guest Conductor of Berlin Symphony.
Sergey Smbatyan holds the title of Honoured Artist of the Republic of Armenia and the title of “Chevalier of Arts and Letters” of France.
Sergey Smbatyan was appointed as a UNICEF National Ambassador in 2023.
With his extraordinary pianistic talents, Fazıl Say has been touching audiences and critics alike for more than twenty-five years, in a way, that has become rare in the increasingly materialistic and elaborately organised classical music world. Concerts with this artist are something different. They are more direct, more open, more exciting; in short, they go straight to the heart.
Since the beginning of his career he has played with all of the renowned American and European orchestras and numerous leading conductors, building up a multifaceted repertoire ranging from Bach, through the Viennese Classics (Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven) and the Romantics, right up to contemporary music, including his own piano compositions.
Guest appearances have taken Fazıl Say to countless countries on all five continents; the French newspaper “Le Figaro” called him ‘a genius’. He also performs chamber music regularly: since many years he has been part of a fantastic duo with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Other notable collaborators include Maxim Vengerov, the Minetti Quartet, Nicolas Altstaedt and Marianne Crebassa.
As a composer, Say has been commissioned to write music for, among others, the Salzburger Festspiele, the WDR and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Konzerthaus Wien, the Dresdner Philharmonie, the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the BBC. His oeuvre includes four symphonies, two oratorios, various solo concertos and numerous works for piano and chamber music.
Highlights of the 2020-21 season include concerts with the Münchner Philharmoniker under Thomas Hengelbrock in Munich and Baden-Baden, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich under Paavo Järvi in Zurich and Hamburg, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Iván Fischer, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Classic Open Air on the Gendarmenmarkt with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and Christoph Eschenbach.
In recitals Fazıl Say can be heard in Japan and European cities such as Milan, Paris, Budapest, Moscow and Munich; in the first half of the season he dedicates his programmes mainly to Beethoven’s sonatas, in 2021 he takes Bach's Goldberg Variations and Schubert's C minor Sonata D 958 with him on tour.
Fazıl Say also regularly performs his own works in concert, including his piano concerto "Silk Road" with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Georgian Chamber Orchestra and the Irish Chamber Orchestra; "The Moving Mansion" with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Würth Philharmoniker and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta; his song cycle "İlk Şarkılar" with mezzo-soprano Serenad Bağcan in Hamburg, Zurich and İstanbul, and his İstanbul Symphony with the Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin.
Fazıl Say has produced an extensive discography of over 40 CDs. His recordings for Teldec Classics, naïve and Warner have received numerous awards, including four ECHO KLASSIK and a Gramophone Classical Music Award. Since 2016 Fazıl Say has been an exclusive artist with Warner Classics, where his last recording of all Beethoven’s piano sonatas was released in January 2020.
For more than five decades, the Berliner Symphoniker have been an integral part of Berlin's musical and cultural life and have enriched the German orchestra landscape. Since 1990 they have been the orchestra for all Berliners.
In addition to the popular and long-established symphony concerts that take place in the Berlin Philharmonic, the Berliner Symphoniker perform throughout Berlin and the surrounding area: They are regular guests at the Konzerthaus Berlin, the University of the Arts, the Berlin Cathedral, the Kulturbrauerei and the Chorin Monastery, among others. With guest performances in Europe and tours to North and South America, Africa and Asia as well as appearances at international festivals (including in France, Italy, Austria, Spain and Israel), the Berliner Symphoniker have presented themselves successfully worldwide and see themselves as Berlin's cultural ambassadors.
In addition to the classical, wide-ranging and popular range of concerts, the repertoire of the Berliner Symphoniker also includes special rarities - unknown and forgotten works as well as contemporary compositions.
Music communication as a special focus has always been a trademark of the orchestra. It was the Berliner Symphoniker, for example, who were the first orchestra in Berlin to develop a music education profile with school concerts and children's and family concerts and who established and promoted work with young people in the long term. Numerous CD recordings and television recordings round off the multifaceted work of the Berliner Symphoniker.
