Ferit Tüzün

Ferit Tüzün, born in Istanbul in 1929, studied piano and composition at the Ankara State Conservatory before a state scholarship sent him to Munich, where he studied conducting with Fritz Lehmann and composition with Carl Orff and Karl Amadeus Hartmann and worked as an assistant conductor at the Bavarian State Opera. He returned to Turkey in 1959. His orchestral works include Çeşmebaşı, Esintiler and Çayda Çıra, which use material derived from Turkish folk music. The comic opera Midas'ın Kulakları, to a libretto by Güngör Dilmen, is one of his stage works. He conducted at the Ankara State Opera and Ballet and taught at the Ankara conservatory from 1974. He died in Ankara in 1977, at forty-eight; the Sevda-Cenap And Music Foundation awarded him its honorary gold medal in 2000. He entered the Ankara conservatory in 1941 on Ulvi Cemal Erkin's recommendation, studying piano with Erkin and composition with Necil Kazım Akses, and stayed on from 1952 to 1954 as an assistant in the composition department and as répétiteur to the ballet. From January 1977 until his death he was general director of the Ankara State Opera and Ballet. A symphony and a piano trio stand in the catalogue beside the orchestral suites.