Giray, Selim

About the author: Selim Giray was born and educated in Turkey. After receiving a fellowship that allowed him to perform with the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra for two years, he received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Florida State University. He has taught at various institutions both in Turkey and the United States. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at Pittsburg State University, Kansas.

Biography of the Turkish Composer Ahmed Adnan Saygun and a Discussion of His Violin Works

2003 0-7734-6879-X
Adnan Saygun, one of the leading composers of the Turkish Five, was a serious ethnomusicologist who led the fieldwork in gathering folk material, and collaborated with the prominent musicological researcher and composer Béla Bartók. Saygun's music is published and recorded and performed internationally. After a biography, this study uses Saygun's violin music to discuss his practice of utilizing Turkish folk elements in Turkish classical music. It thus provides the non-Turkish performer with an understanding of the performance practice of the authentic Turkish folk idiom in Saygun's original compositions and Turkish classical music. A list of Saygun's works (revised by the composer) and a discography follow.