{"id":55136,"date":"2014-10-23T16:29:50","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T13:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=55136"},"modified":"2014-10-23T16:29:50","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T13:29:50","slug":"opponents-turkish-pianist-fazil-say-has-sent-a-letter-to-the-government-breaking-news-55136","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/opponents-turkish-pianist-fazil-say-has-sent-a-letter-to-the-government-breaking-news-55136\/","title":{"rendered":"Opponents Turkish pianist Fazil Say has sent a letter to the Government \/ Breaking News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Faz\u0131l-Say-H\u00fck\u00fcmete-Mektup\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

Turkish pianist Fazil Say \u00a0who is compositions censored by the Turkish Ministry of Culture, \u00a0sent a letter to\u00a0the Government and say dont fear artists.<\/h1>\n

Famous Turkish pianist and composer Faz\u0131l Say, who claimed on social media earlier this week that Turkey\u2019s Culture and Tourism Ministry\u2019s Presidential Symphony Orchestra had removed three of his pieces from its annual program, has written an open letter to the government.<\/p>\n

Saying he was writing the letter from Beijing where he is currently on tour, Say shared the letter on his Facebook account, addressed to \u201cthe prime minister, the president and all officials.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThree of my pieces were removed from the program in Ankara, which has received reactions in Turkey and across the world \u2026 I hope you read these and try to understand,\u201d the letter read.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know when you become really strong? It is at the time when you bring both the East and the West, the synthesis of these two, into existence. The piece \u2018Istanbul Symphony,\u2019 which has been banned in Ankara, has been played all around the world. The work tells about Istanbul with music.<\/p>\n

After its first performance in 2010, more than 50 international orchestras included it in their repertoire. I won the 2013 ECHO Classic Award for it, one of the most important awards in classical music,\u201d it added.
\nSay referred to himself in the third person and urged officials to be \u201cproud\u201d of the piece and to not be scared.<\/p>\n

\u201cFaz\u0131l Say has 56 pieces. Nothing changes for him when three of them are not played in Ankara. But the world condemns your \u2018prohibitive state.\u2019 Nobody in Turkey feels better when you apply a boycott on a musician. You don\u2019t feel good either. The loser is the one who makes this decision,\u201d he said in the letter.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet Turkey compete in the field of art. Don\u2019t close down operas, theaters, orchestras. Let the public decide what is good. Don\u2019t be afraid of arts and artists; they are not a \u2018military power\u2019 but only musicians, theater artists, dancers, humans, ordinary citizens,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have not gotten along with this government for years due to other censorships and concert cancelations … Faz\u0131l Say gives 100-130 concerts around the world every year. Ask yourselves, \u2018who is he?\u2019 He is a Turkish citizen, based in Turkey. When you cancel three or four of my concerts, nothing changes for me or for others. The cancelation is simply condemned. Is this what you want? There are lots of artists in the world: Believers, non-believers, Buddhists, deists, atheists. But nobody question these artists over this. Let\u2019s be open. Turkey has a number of artists that are known across the world. They win contests, awards, they get something after giving hundreds of concerts over decades. Please try to understand, at least for once,\u201d the letter added.<\/p>\n

Last year, Fazil Say was handed a suspended 10-month prison sentence for retweeting lines attributed to 11th century poet Omar Khayyam, on charges of \u201cinsulting the religious beliefs held by a section of the society.\u201d<\/p>\nError, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 13)<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Turkish pianist Fazil Say who is compositions censored by the Turkish Ministry of Culture, sent a letter to the Government and say dont fear artists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":702,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,1,118,101,171,174,194,173,188],"tags":[74429,22488,74428,74431,74430],"class_list":["post-55136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-general","category-hot","category-politics","category-turkey","category-turkey-daily","category-turkey-general","category-turkey-headlines","category-turkey-politics","tag-fazil-say-letter-government","tag-fazil-say","tag-opponets-turkish-pianist-fazil-say","tag-turkish-government-fazil-say","tag-turkish-ministry-of-culture-censored-fazil-say"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}