Kudsi Erguner is a Turkish

Turkish people

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

 musician. He is considered a master of traditional Mevlevi Sufi music and is one of the best-known players of the Turkish ney flute

Ney

The ney is an end-blown flute that figures prominently in Middle Eastern music. In some of these musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used. It is a very ancient instrument, with depictions of ney players appearing in wall paintings in the Egyptian pyramids and actual neys being found...

.

Biography

He was born in Diyarbakır

Diyarbakır

Diyarbakır is one of the largest cities in southeastern Turkey...

, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 in 1952. As a boy, Kudsi studied with his father Ulvi Erguner and attended the Sema

Sema

Sama is a Sufi ceremony performed as dhikr. Sama means "listening", while dhikr means "remembrance". These rituals often includes singing, playing instruments, dancing, recitation of poetry and prayers, wearing symbolic attire, and other rituals...

  of the Mevlevi-Sufi tradition along with other Dervish ceremonies. He started his musical career in Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

 Radio in 1969. For several decades, he has researched the earliest roots of Ottoman music which he has also taught, performed and recorded.

In the seventies Kudsi Erguner moved to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 where, at the beginning of the eighties, he founded the Mevlana Institute devoted to the study and teaching of classical Sufi music. Together with the Kudsi Erguner Ensemble he developed deep insights into the diversity of his culture: the group conveys both authentic, often improvised forms of expression of classical Ottoman

Ottoman Turks

The Ottoman Turks were the Turkish-speaking population of the Ottoman Empire who formed the base of the state's military and ruling classes. Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks is scarce, but they take their Turkish name, Osmanlı , from the house of Osman I The Ottoman...

 performance culture as well as a comprehensive repertoire of modern and classical pieces that can be traced back to the 13th century.

He took part in Peter Brook's

Peter Brook

Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...

 movie Meetings with Remarkable Men

Meetings with Remarkable Men

Meetings with Remarkable Men is the second volume of the All and Everything trilogy written by the Greek-Armenian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff...

in 1978.

In addition to his own recordings, Erguner has performed with Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel

Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...

 (The Last Temptation Of Christ

The Last Temptation of Christ (film)

The Last Temptation of Christ is a 1988 drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a film adaptation of the controversial 1953 novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis. It stars Willem Dafoe as Jesus Christ, Harvey Keitel as Judas Iscariot, Barbara Hershey as Mary Magdalene, David Bowie as...

soundtrack), William Orbit

William Orbit

William Orbit is an English musician, composer and record producer, perhaps best known to most for his work on Madonna's album Ray of Light. He has also co-produced several unreleased Madonna songs originally recorded for other albums...

's band Bassomatic

BassOmatic

In cryptography, BassOmatic was the symmetric-key cipher designed by Phil Zimmermann as part of his email encryption software, PGP . Comments in the source code indicate that he had been designing the cipher since as early as 1988, but it was not publicly released until 1991...

 (Set the Controls for the Heart of the Bass

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Bass

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Bass is a 1990 album by Bassomatic. The title and title track are derived from the Pink Floyd song "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun".-Track listing:# In the Realm of the Senses...

), Jean Michel Jarre

Jean Michel Jarre

Jean Michel André Jarre is a French composer, performer and music producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and New Age genres, and known as an organiser of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays, and fireworks.Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and...

, Maurice Béjart

Maurice Béjart

Maurice Béjart was a French born, Swiss choreographer who ran the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland. He was the son of the French philosopher Gaston Berger.- Biography :...

, Peter Brook

Peter Brook

Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...

, George Aperghis, Didier Lockwood

Didier Lockwood

Didier Lockwood is a French jazz violinist. He played in the progressive rock/jazz fusion band Magma in the 1970s and is known for his use of electric amplification and experimentation on different sounds on the electric violin....

, Italian singer-songwriter Alice

Alice (Italian singer)

Alice , also known as Alice Visconti is an Italian singer-songwriter and pianist, active since 1971...

 and Michel Portal

Michel Portal

Michel Portal is a composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist.Portal studied clarinet at the Conservatoire de Paris...

.

Discography

• Meditation on the Ney (Unesco Collection), 1978
• Whirling Dervishes from Turkey, with Kemal Evren, Tugrul Inancer, Aram Kerovpyan, Muzzffereddîn Ozak, Hafiz Kemâl Ozmutlu, Mahmud Tabrîzîzade, 1981
• Turkey: Art of the Ottoman Tanbur, 1989
• The Mystic Flutes of Sufi: Preludes to Ceremonies of the Whirling Dervishes, with Suleyman Erguner, 1988
• Cérémonie des Derviches Kadiri, 1989
• Fasl Hidjaz Houmayoun, 1990
• Sufi Music of Turkey, with Suleyman Erguner, Mahmoud Tabrizi Zadeh, Bruno Caillat, 1990
• The Turkish Ney, with Salih Dede, Suleyman Erguner, 1990
• Gazel: Classical Sufi Music of the Ottoman Empire, with Husnu Anil, Aziz Bahriyeli, Yusuf Bilgin, Mehmet Emin Bitmez, Suleyman Erguner, Hasan Esen, Fevzi Misir, Walter Quintus
  Walter Quintus
  Walter Quintus is a German musician, composer and sound engineer.As a musician, composer, producer, arranger, engineer and real-time processor, “Master of the Craft of Sound” Walter Quintus has collaborated with a diverse assortment of some of the greatest musicians from the world's musical cultures...
  
  , Kurt Renker, 1991
• Ottoman Classical Music, with Gilles Andrieux, 1992
• Peshrev & Semai of Tanburi Djemil Bey, 1994
• L'Orient de L'Occident: Flamenco & Ottoman Sufi Music, with Yusuf Bilgin. Mehmet Emin Bitmez, Bruno Caillat, Pedro Soler, 1995
• The Sacred Flute of the Whirling Dervishes, 1996
• Works of Kemani Tatyos Efendi, with Husnu Anil, Mehmet Emin Bitmez, Suleyman Erguner, Necip Gulses, Dogan Hosses, Sükrü Kabaci, Baki Kemanci, 1996
• Vocal Masterpieces of Kemani Tatyos Efendi, with Husnu Anil, Suleyman Erguner, Necip Gulses, Dogan Hosses, Sükrü Kabaci, Baki Kemanci, 1996
• Psalms of Yunus Emre, with Yusuf Bilgin, Bruno Caillat, 1997
• Chemins, with Pierre Rigopoulos, Martin Saint-Pierre, Derya Turkan, 1997
• Music from the Arabian Nights, with Bruno Caillat, Tabrizi Mahmoud Zadeh, 1999
• Ottomania, 1999
• Islam Blues, with Bruno Caillat, Renaud Garcia-Fons
  Renaud Garcia-Fons
  Renaud Garcia-Fons is a French double-bass player and composer, notable for his customised 5-stringed bass.-Career:Garcia-Fons' father is the painter Pierre Garcia-Fons, and his family is of Catalonian origin...
  
  , Nguyên Lê
  Nguyên Lê
  Nguyên Lê is a French jazz musician and composer of Vietnamese ancestry. His main instrument is guitar, and he also plays electric bass guitar and guitar synthesizer....
  
  , Derya Turkan, Mark Nausesf, Yunus Balcioglu, Halil Neciboglu,2001
• Taj Mahal, with Bruno Caillat, Sultan Khan, Fazal Qureshi, Derya Turkan, Ken Zukerman, 2001
• Nazım Hikmet - Şair Cenazesi, 2002
• Gazing Point, with Markus Stockhausen
  Markus Stockhausen
  Markus Pirol Stockhausen is a German trumpeter and composer.-Biography:Born in Cologne, he is the son of composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. At age four he appeared as "child at play" in his father's theatre piece Originals. He received his first piano lessons at age six, and at age twelve he began to...
  
   & Mark Nauseef
  Mark Nauseef
  Mark Nauseef , is a drummer and percussionist who has enjoyed a varied career, ranging from rock music during the 1970s with his time as a member of the Ian Gillan Band and, temporarily, Thin Lizzy, to a wide range of musical styles in more recent times, playing with many notable musicians from all...
  
  , 2003

With Anouar Brahem

Anouar Brahem

Anouar Brahem is an oud player and composer. He is widely acclaimed as an innovator in his field...

• Conte de l'Incroyable Amour
  Conte de l'Incroyable Amour
  -Track listing:# "Etincelles" - 3:21# "Le Chien Sur Les Genoux de la Devineresse" - 3:44# "L' Oiseau de Bois" - 4:48# "Lumière du Silence" - 5:15# "Conte de I'incroyable Amour" - 10:51# "Peshrev Hidjaz Homayoun" - 5:03...
  
  (ECM, 1991)

External links

• NTV News Online - News on Kudsi Ergüner