Kudsi Erguner

Kudsi Erguner, born in the 1950s in Istanbul, Turkey, is considered a master of traditional Mevlevi Sufi and is one of the best-known players of the Turkish ney flute. As a boy, Kudsi and his father Ulvi Erguner performed hypnotic and spiritual dance rituals from the Mevlevi-Sufi tradition at Dervish ceremonies. For several decades now, he has researched into the earliest roots of Ottoman music which he has also taught, performed and recorded. In the seventies Kudsi Erguner moved to Paris 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 performance culture as well as a comprehensive repertoire of modern and classical pieces that can be traced back to the 13th century. In addition to his own recordings, Erguner has performed with Peter Gabriel , Maurice Béjart, Peter Brook, George Aperghis, Didier Lockwood and Michel Portal. Erguner has thus made authoritative contributions to World Music. He has documented and revived nearly forgotten musical traditions and brought them to the attention of the Western public, securing them a place within Europe's cultural inheritance. At the end of the nineties he broke new musical ground with his group "Ottomania". For the first time he brought together classical Turkish musicians of the Mevlevi-Sufi tradition and European jazz musicians.

Up until then encounters between Turkish musicians and jazz interpreters had taken place exclusively in the sphere of Turkish popular music. But in Kudsi's opinion classical and modern music are by no means exclusive forms: "It's impossible," he says, "for a classical art form to remain indifferent to the influences that stream in from the whole of the world."