Omar Faruk Tekbilek - Hasret! video

The masterpiece track "HASRET" is taken from OMAR FARUK TEKBILEK's great album "MYSTICAL GARDEN" (1996). Also to be find on the sampler album "DANCE INTO ETERNITY: Selected Pieces 1987-1998" (released 2001). Listen & Enjoy it. Turkish "hasret" means "hunger for", "missing greatly", "yearning", "nostalgia" . Omar Faruk Tekbilek had been studying Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, with the thought of becoming a Sufi cleric. At 15, he quit school to become a professional musician. "But I never quit studying, though," he maintains. "In fact, I am still studying; it's endless. Music for me is not something to show off. It's my life. It's the shortest path to God. Playing is prayer for me." He went to Istanbul and at the age of 17 met the Mevlevi Dervishes, the ancient Sufi order of Turkey. He did not join the order, but felt profoundly influenced by their mystical approach to sound and to the spirit. Another, almost equally mystical influence would soon appear, from an unlikely source. The young Tekbilek became friend with flute and saxophone player named Ismet Siral, who had some unusual ideas about music theory. "He would say things like, let's play for birds, let's play for pictures." OFT says about Burhan Tonguch, his rhythm teacher: "He put the idea in my mind that everything is a rhythmic instrument. And everyone is a percussionist. Without the strike, there is no sound." Despite, or perhaps because of, this unconventional outlook, Faruk's skills were much in demand ...