Blind composer strikes a chord

April 27, 2009 by Alexandria Daniels 

Lecture recounts story of perseverance over disability

Turkish composer Koray Sazli truly knows what it means to overcome hardship and make dreams come true.

Sazli, an accomplished composer of orchestral music, has been blind since the age of 9.

He recounted how he overcame his disability and started on his path as a musician in his Friday lecture, titled “Composer In Sight: Perspectives of a Blind Composer.” 

“It was the kind of inspiring story you don’t hear often,” said Michelle Gumataotao, a student who attended. 

Sazli, born in 1973, learned to play the piano shortly before he began to lose his sight. He had aspired to be a professional soccer player and for a while remained undeterred by his disability, continuing to play for some time after he became blind.

Then one day he ran into a tree in his back yard.

“It was then when I realized I [couldn’t] play soccer anymore,” Sazli said.

Choosing instead to pursue music he was accepted to the Mimar Sinan State Conservatory in Istanbul at the age of 11 and began to study classical guitar. Throughout his studies, challenges arose as Braille music books were not available and his college acceptance committee felt the school was not equipped with the proper materials for him.

A member of the committee even told Sazli that “music is a visual art and pleaded with him not to attend the school, but he persisted.

“No one can make me stop studying composition,” Salzi said. 

Looking for further education, he eventually came to the U.S. and found himself in Boston in 1995.

Sazli learned English at the Carroll Center for the Blind, before being accepted to Boston University where, after some resistance, Sazli passed his exams and achieved a master’s and ultimately earned his doctorate.

Sazli then tackled the challenge of his composition process. For his first recorded composition, he used a Braille writer, a piano and a tape recorder, slowly punching in his composition. But the process was tedious and inefficient.

“It’s impossible to redo [anything],” Sazli said, noting that the Braille writer permanently leaves a hole in the paper.

Sazli used the process until 2000. Then he switched to Braille Lite 40, a digital program that makes the writing easier.

“Now I’m living,” he joked.

Sazli also shared the story of a friend who was born blind, highlighting the differences between visually disabled individuals. He said he doesn’t have to “imagine” colors, as he knows them from his childhood. But when he asked his friend if she had to, he was surprised. He assumed she could only see black.

“She doesn’t know what black is,” he said.

Sazli sampled two of his compositions for the lecture audience. He played his first composition, which was inspired by a poem from the early days of the Turkish republic.

The composer described the second piece he played that evening, titled “Capricco Alla Danza,” as a song for international audiences.

To close the evening’s lecture, Sazli showcased three versions of one composition to the audience, highlighting his creative process. Attendees saw editions written in Braille and in standard music notation both manually and electronically.

Sazli is currently the director of audio design at Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul. His goal is to develop and improve technology to help blind students around the world with their studies.