Edition: II
Bio/Studies
Fazli Orhun ORHON, Born in Ankara, Turkiye in 1977; Orhon started studying composition in the class of Elhan Bakihanov at the Faculty of Music and Performing Arts of Bilkent University. In 2001 he was accepted to the composition class of Rainer Boesch at International Music Academy of Annemasse in France. Returning back to Bilkent University in 2003 Orhon started studying orchestral conducting with maestro Gürer Aykal.
Career
By 2006 he started teaching at the Faculty of Music and Performing Arts and in 2007 he became the assistant conductor of Bilkent Youth Symphony Orchestra. Composing regularly as well, Orhon got third and second prizes in Dr. Nejat Eczacıbaşı National Composition Contest, respectively in 2006 and 2008. Between 2006 and 2009 he became a member of Çankaya Municipality, Center of Modern Arts, Music Council where the first regular chamber music concerts of Ankara were organized for three years. During this period, many Turkish Chamber Works were recorded and staged for the first time. As a forthcoming conductor of his generation, Orhon has been credited for his diverse repertoire ranging from modern chamber music to large orchestral music. He also made the first recordings and world premieres of many Turkish Composers’ Works. Orhon participated as assistant conductor in international projects like the World Youth Orchestra and Greek Turkish Youth Orchestra. Currently he is teaching both at the Faculty of Music and Performing Arts of Bilkent University and Hacettepe Conservatory in Ankara along with his post as general music director of Ankara Philharmonic Orchestra.
Notes on the Musma Composition
“Music for piano”
The music for piano is composed “freely” over the symphonic poem Les Preludes by Franz Lizst, as a commission of MUSMA project upon the theme “Lizst and Environment” The music is based on the march motive of Les Preludes which actually highlights the bright glory of human shortly for beeing and delivering the him/herself through the tempests of life in the romantic sense. A very well known or popular theme for Liszt’s environment. During World War II, a fanfare motiv of the march finale was made the signature tune for the Wehrmachtbericht radio report and Die Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel. A very well-known theme for another world and approach far from 1865s Generalizations and mutual understanding changes from one era to another. The only connection between Romantic Lizst, 1940s and 2000s is simply none but the notion of art as metaphor or a religiously treated culture. Simply because we need roots to feel meaningful. Yet it is only evolution constantly moving. Through the idealized romantic transcendental person to fighting flocks and the subjectivist liberal human who is often confused or terrorised. Let me make a quotation from the preface of Lizst’s most popular symphonic poem though with small changes: “What else is life but a series of preludes to that unknown Hymn(evolution), the first and solemn note of which is intoned (unnecessarily) by (our obsession of) Death……” There lies our dilemma between the wish of being watchful demi-god sentinels of a beautifully slow and evolving universe which we decorate with meaning and actually there does not have to be a meaning, neither good nor evil but beautiful simplicity of being only for a short while.
