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His name is Fazil Say. People in US usually don't know him. He should be well known in Europe though. Here's a few interesting videos of him..

Turkish March : kinda jazzy.

Kara Toprak (Black Earth) : This one is a piano interpretation of a Turkish traditional song. Watching all of it might be boring for you, but see the first minute. He's doing interesting things:).

Paganini Variations

He has some cd's at amazon.com. His Mozart cd's should be good.

Also, his website: http://www.fazilsay.com/

hope you enjoy the videos..

Here Fazil Say plays a piece for 4 hands:). The piece is not very "listener-friendly", but being a 4 hand piece you might want to check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-rqOJDo0-8&mode=related&search=fazil%20say

Not very listener friendly??? The Rite of Spring is one of the most incredible pieces ever written, and the 4 hand version is great as well - I find it really evokes the colors of the orchestral version.

That's gotta be weird playing on a keyboard where the other keys are moving with the second part...

I've heard Fazil Say's CD of Gershwin pieces and actually quite enjoyed it.

I myself enjoyed it, too. But to some ears, I thought, it might sound a little bit "too much" at first especially played 4 hands. So, just wanted to give a warning . So, sorry about the misunderstanding, I don't mean it's not a good piece.

I know what you mean - it does take a little getting used to... It's too bad they only have the first 8 or 9 minutes of the piece - I would have liked to have heard the rest of it.

This guy is obviously a genious on the piano but for me, his wacky facial expressions are more than worth the price of admission!!

Yeah, I was going to mention that in my first post, but I didn't since it was obvious. He seems he's really feeling his music.

It's not an expression, he has a problem with his lower lip.

I've seen him on a special on satellite tv here in Europe, it was interesting.

He does some interesting special effects by muting strings with his hands, and I liked the way he did Alla Turco as a duet with a soprano.

The Bach CD is good, too.

He uses what looked like an unusual finger angle to me, hands very high and fingers at 90 degrees to the keys some of the time. Might have been camera angle, I dunno.

I think, the soprano you're talking about is Sertab Erener, who is actually a pop music singer:). She has a strong voice.

I think, the angle depends on how soft he's playing. The softer the piece is, the flatter the fingers are and vice versa. I noticed the similar thing in Yundi Li videos.

I've just found the original video where all of these previous videos came from. It's about one hour long. As far as I know, it's not being sold anywhere, so my guess is it's a tv recording. Should be legal to share, I guess.

If you pm me (with your address) I can send you a copy when I find the time.

He's got a lot of Scott Joplin in him...

Wow. Defintely watch all of Black Earth (Kara Toprak) Fantastic!!!!

The Jazz-Turkish March is from a Japanese cable channel that has a lot of great music shows (but we don't have cable!) so that was a little surprising.

I really like what he does, but at the same time I'd like him to slow down and inject a little air into his playing. It seems a bit too frantic. I guess that goes mainly for the Turkish March, which was really clever but almost too show-offy. The middle-to-end of the Paganini was better because there's more "contemplation" in the music.

And what is the deal with Rite of Spring? Has he programmed the other hand into the piano and the piano then plays itself while he plays the other part? Hmmm, not my thing. Kind of gimmcky IMO. I prefer something more organic...

OTOH, Kara Toprak sounds really cool when he's got his hand inside the piano! Wow. It sounds like another instrument... can't place it.... I think Kara Toprak was definitely my favorite of all the selections. Very pensive and the sound is quite compelling.

Sorry if I sound overly critical. But I'd love to hear more of his playing, it sounds like he has a lot of original ideas, and clearly fantastic technique. Thanks for sharing these links Ishmael!

I watched the whole program today and it was great, he played some Bach and Chopin as far as I can tell. The Turkish march was for show purposes actually, he played it after the concert. You know, the man finishes his program then he leaves the stage, people continue to applaud and he comes again to play something else for fun. So, your observation is quite fair.

As for the 4-hand piece, he plays the first 2-hands before the concert and then piano records all the action (not the sounds), so it's not that mechanic actually.

He is trying to create sound of saz (traditional turkish instrument) in my opinion

Wow! How did you know that? It's actually called "baglama", which can be considered as a type of "saz".:

Yes, you're right that's what i meant. Baglama sounds great in the hands of a professional and it is the dominant instrument in anatolian folk songs and Kara Toprak is that kind of song so i am assuming that he was trying to tie the song to it's origins with that passages.

I mailed the dvd's.. The postal service is kinda problematic here, but they should arrive in 2-3 days.