Kudsi Ergüner

Kudsi Ergüner — Biography

Kudsi Erguner is a Turkish composer, ney player, musicologist and Sufi born on February 4, 1952, in Diyarbakır. The son of Ulvi Erguner, founder of the "Erguner School" that carried on the Mevlevi tradition, he began his musical career at Istanbul Radio in 1969 and, after settling in Paris in the 1970s, earned doctorates in both architecture and musicology.

In the early 1980s he founded the Mevlana Institute, devoted to teaching classical Sufi thought, and went on to collaborate with internationally known artists including Peter Gabriel, Jean Michel Jarre, Maurice Béjart, Peter Brook, George Aperghis, and Didier Lockwood, as well as appearing in Peter Brook's 1979 film. He composed the score for the 2000 Spanish film Vengo, and drew attention with concerts such as "Tarih Boyunca Hoşgörü," bringing together Istanbul's Christian and Muslim musical traditions, and "Taj Mahal," combining Indian, jazz and Turkish musicians.

Erguner has been named a UNESCO Artist for Peace and twice won the Afife Theatre Award for scores written for plays directed by Mehmet Ulusoy. He has described himself as a "cultural refugee" living in France, and in his memoir "Ayrılık Çeşmesi" and in interviews has criticized what he calls the corruption of religious music and the monopolization of Sufi teaching.