Kudsi Erguner

Kudsi Erguner ranks among the foremost interpreters of the ney, the traditional Turkish reed flute, sharing that distinction with his brother Suleyman. Beyond his solo releases, he has appeared alongside Peter Gabriel, Maurice Bejart, Peter Brook, Georges Aperghis, Didier Lockwood, and Michel Portal. Scores and joint projects by Erguner have featured in the films The Last Temptation of Christ and Meetings with Remarkable Men, the stage work and film Mahabharata, and the ballets Le Voyage Nocturne and Neva. The Kudsi Erguner Ensemble originated in 1988 under the name Fasi, its purpose being the preservation of classical repertoire from the 16th-century Ottomon Empire.

Erguner grew up in a lineage of ney performers; his father Ulvi Erguner and grandfather Suleyman Erguner both enjoyed widespread recognition on the instrument. In addition to their instruction, he absorbed further knowledge from senior musicians who frequented the family home during his childhood. His command of Turkish classical music deepened through examination of the Sufi brotherhoods.

He entered professional music in 1969 with the Istanbul Radio Orchestra and relocated to Paris six years afterward to pursue architecture and musicology. The year after that move, he contributed to Peter Brook’s film Meetings with Remarkable Men, shot on location in Afghanistan. Erguner later resumed his association with Brook by composing and playing the music for the theater piece and film Mahabharata.

Following a 1980 UNESCO-funded research period in Turkey, Erguner settled again in Paris and established Mevlani, an institute devoted to classical Sufi music and teachings. From 1986 to 1987 he resided for extended stretches in Pakistan, capturing and archiving traditional repertory for Radio France and France Musique. Toward the end of 1987 he presented a program of Ottoman music at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

In 1988 Erguner worked with Peter Gabriel on the soundtrack for The Last Temptation of Christ; that same year he and his brother issued the album The Mystic Flutes of Sufi, containing preludes drawn from Whirling Dervishes ceremonies. The siblings resumed their partnership in 1990 with the release of Sufi Music of Turkey. The next year Erguner appeared on three recordings: Turquie: Musique Soufi with Ilahi and Nefes N. Uzel, Oriental Dreams with Mahmoud Tebrizizadeh, and Gazel: Classical Sufi Music of the Ottomon Empire alongside the Kudsi Erguner Ensemble. He joined Derya Turkan for the 1997 album Chemins. Two years later Erguner launched the Kudsi Erguner Sufi-Jazz Project with Christof Lauer, Michel Godard, and Marc Nauseef, documenting the venture on Ottomania.