Born in 1970 in Ankara, Turkey, Fazıl Say started playing the piano at the age of four. He continued his music training in Ankara State Conservatory as a student of Special Status for Highly Talented Children and graduated from piano and composition in 1987. At the age of seventeen he was awarded a scholarship that enabled him to study for five years with David Levine at the Robert Schumann Institute in Düsseldorf. He earned his diploma in Germany in 1991 as Concerto Soloist and became a piano and chamber music teacher in 1992 in Berlin Performing Arts and Music Academy. Say won the Europe Young Concert Soloists Competition in 1994 and then the Young Concert Artists International Auditions held in New York in 1995. Besides playing the piano, he has composed many oratorios, piano concertos, pieces of music for chamber, orchestra and piano and many other songs.
Some of his compositions include Nazım and Requiem for Metin Altıok, four piano concertos, his orchestra piece Albert Einstein commissioned by Zurich Orchestra and his ballet named Patara which is commissioned by Wien Mozart Committee and was composed for Mozart's 250th birth year celebration.
He has performed with New York Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Berlin Symphony, Czech Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France and Tokyo Symphony.