Cüneyd Orhon was born 1926 in Istanbul. He graduated from the School of Fine Arts, Department of interior Design, Istanbul. He started to learn music in 1946 at the well-known Üsküdar Music Society, where he became the student of Emin Ongan, who was a rolebrated, knowledgeable teacher and musician. The same year he slarted taking private kemence (small violin or kit) lessons from Kemal Niyazi Seyhun, who had seen Vasil, the oldest known master of the kemençe, and listened to his nnuslc and carefuliy abserved his technique and style of performance. These precious private lessons lasted tor two years, from 1946 to 1948. From 1948 to 1951 he played for the Ensemble of Istanbul University, which was under the conduction of Ercümend Berker and Nevzad Atlığ. Upon the invitation of Cevdet Kozanoğlu, who in the 1950s was the music director of Ankara Radio, Orhon moved to Ankara.From 1951 to 1985, for thirty-four years he played for Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir radios and held important positions at various administrative departments of Turkish radios, apart (rom being a permanent radio performer. In 1961 Orhon was invited to Bagdad Conservatoire as a visiting musician, where he gave lectures on Turkish music for one term, in 1963 he also became a member of the Ensemble of the City Conservatory conducted by Münir Nurettin Selçuk. He was among the musical authorities who founded the State Conservatory of Turkish Music in 1975, where he is stili giving kemence lessons and performing adminstrative functions.

Orhon performed music with outstanding musicians of Turkey, such as Münir Nurettin Selçuk, Nubar Tekyay, Yorgo Bacanos, Vecihe Daryal, İzzettin Ökte, Sadi Işılay, Vecdi Seyhun, Haluk Recai, Niyazi Sayın, Nevzat Atlığ, Alaeddin Yavaşça and Bekir Sıtkı Sezgin. For twenty years he was an unchanging accompanist to the legendary singer Münir Nurettin Selçuk.

Orhon is considered one of the best kemence players of the last fifty years. He has been playing this difficult musical instrument with remarkable virtuosity. Apart from being a talented performer, he is a very experienced and knowledgeable musician who knows well the repertoire of Turkish music, its theoretical basis, its tonal system and makams, in terms of instrumental technique he is a fo Hower of the legendary kemençe player Vasil (1845-1907). In Turkish music there are mainiy two technical positions on the kemence, represented by two instrumental masters: Kemençeci Vasil and Tanburî Cemil Bey. Vasil enjoyed steady bowing movements wlthout breaks as opposed to Cemil Bey who preferred using a number of detached movements, or so-called "broken bows" in Turkish music.

The traditional kemençe is a three-stringed musical instrument with two octaves. It is a challenging musical instrument. On the kemençe it is eşpecialiy difficult to play the notes in the upper octave. Since the strings of the traditional kemence are not of equal length, being able to use the best finger positions demands meticulous practice and creativity, and mostiy each performer has to develop his/her own positions. Having played the three-strînged kemence for thirty years, Orhon added a fourth string to his instrument to equalize the length of the strings, which made fineer positlons easler to ppractise.

Cüneyd Orhon is on this CD performing instrumental compositlons chosen both from the repertoire of the past centuries and the present century, along with instrumental improvisations. in the first 10 pieces he is accompanied by the kanun player Nevzat Sümer (together with violencello in number 7, 9 and 10). From 11 to 21 the accompanying instrument is the ud.

Bülent Aksoy

Source: Kalan Music