Pianist leads protest against Canadian gold diggers

Pianist leads protest against Canadian gold diggers

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norman lebrecht

August 20, 2019

The politically engaged Turkish pianist Fazil Say has given an open-air concert for thousands of spectators in the northwest province of Canakkale to protest against Government-sanctioned deforestation by a Canadian gold-mining firm, Alamos Gold Inc.

Fazil calls it ‘a massacre of nature… of plants andn anmals.’

 

Comments

  • Jean says:

    I was in Canakkale 10 years ago. What beautiful nature….!

  • Sue Sonata Form says:

    I’d love to visit Canada; what a wonderful country.

  • Doug says:

    Easy to criticize the Canadians from such a distance. Why doesn’t he protest against his own government and publicly declare Erdogan as a “murderer and rapist of nature”? It’s all about virtue signaling which is just a symptom of a deep sickness of the soul.

    • Pianofortissimo says:

      The guy is just being smart. Virtue signaling against Canada results i more invitations to give recitals (and moral speeches) in Canada. If he is so virtuous in Turkey he gets some baton punches and goes to jail.

    • Piano Fan says:

      Fazil Say has already gotten himself into trouble taking a principled and public stand against the policies of Erdogan’s government and radical Islam.

      Neither you nor Erdogan are in a position to judge Say’s “soul”.

    • Gustavo says:

      I don’t think that we should be caring about his or our nationalities.

      The problems Fazil addresses are of general ethical relevance.

      He has never been an uncritical human being in his own country.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fazıl_Say#Blasphemy_charge

  • Pianofortissimo says:

    Variations on a theme: some dig gold, others play the Goldberg.

  • Fiddlist says:

    Politically-engaged Turk throwing around the word “massacre”?

    One million Armenians…

  • Edgar says:

    So much for Justin Trudeau… His carefully crafted public image becomes more and more cracked each passing day (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/22/justin-trudeau-the-rise-and-fall-of-a-political-brand).

  • Edgar Self says:

    Several years ago a Turkish court convicted Fazil Say and sentenced him, fortunately in absentia, to prison for “insulting Islam”. He can’t go back there.

    Have you heard his piece “A Dervish in Manhattan” and variations on Mozart’s “Rondo alla turca”? An original piece of his called “Black Earth” is striking He played them in his recital here.

    Some good pianists are from Turkey: gesides Fazil Saay there’s Idil Biret, a pupil of Wilhelm Kempff’s; the impressive Huseyin Sermet, and Setrak, though some say Setrak isn’t Turkish but Balkan.

    And for opera fans with long memories: Leyla Gencer.

  • superbe says:

    Can’t he simply play the piano and stop environmental stupidities?

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