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Mehmet Ruhi Su (born 1912 - died September 20, 1985) was a Turkish folk singer and saz virtuoso.
Ruhi Su was born 1912 in Van, Turkey. He never knew his parents. With
his words, "He is one of the children desolated by the World War I." He
was taken from Van to Adana at a very young age and given to a poor
family without child.
He started playing violin at the age of ten. In 1936 he graduated from
the Teacher's School of music and in 1942 from the Opera Department of
State Conservatory in Ankara. The following ten years, he performed at
the State Opera in Ankara as a celebrated bass baritone, appearing in
operas such as Madame Butterfly, Fidelio, Tosca and Rigoletto. During
his contemporary music education, he also studied Turkish folk music
and consequently made regular radio programs, playing saz and singing
folk songs, while he worked at the opera. A politically motivated
arrest in 1952 and imprisonment for five years ended his career in the
opera. After serving his "sentence for thought," he dedicated himself
to folk music in his unique way.
While he roamed all over Anatolia from one village to another, he
started compiling numerous folk songs. Then, he rearranged and
performed them using western techniques. His western music career
formed the basis of his approach to interpreting and performing
traditional Turkish Music. He argued that the authentic music should
not be imitated as it is found locally but rather elabrorated into a
national music with the enriching support of the international music,
perceiving it as a contemporary of Atahualpa Yupanqui and Pete Seeger.
Ruhi Su combined his efforts of creating a national awareness of the
rich Anatolian culture with his compositions based on texts of Sufi
poets Yunus Emre and Pir Sultan Abdal and other Anatolian poets like
Köroğlu (see Epic of Köroğlu), Karacaoğlan, and Dadaloğlu. He also
established and trained a choir in the 1970s and conducted them in many
concerts and recordings. His approach in bringing forth the ignored
suffering of the oppressed and his love of humankind in his musical
work has gained a great respect and support from his audience and had a
deep effect on many musicians, who paved the path to a more open-minded
society.
Ruhi Su died on September 20, 1985 and was buried at the Zincirlikuyu Cemetery in Istanbul
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