Suna Kan

Suna Kan — Biography

Suna Kan was born on 21 October 1936 in Adana, the daughter of Nuri Kan, a violist in the Presidential Symphony Orchestra. She began learning violin from her father at five, later studied with a family friend, and entered the Ankara State Conservatory. After performing a Mozart concerto at her first recital at age nine she was hailed as a child prodigy, and a special law sent her on a state scholarship, first to Rome and then to the Paris Conservatoire. There she studied under Gabriel Bouillon, graduated first in her class in 1952, and won prizes at international competitions including the Viotti, Munich and Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud events.

She returned to Turkey in 1957 and was appointed soloist and concertmaster of the Presidential Symphony Orchestra, a post she held for over four decades. In the early 1970s she co-founded the Ankara Chamber Orchestra with her husband Faruk Güvenç and conductor Gürer Aykal, where she also performed as soloist for years. Regarded as a leading interpreter of Turkish composers' violin works, she received the State Artist title in 1971 and later taught as a violin professor at Bilkent University.

Her marriage to Faruk Güvenç lasted until his death in 1982; she remarried diplomat Halit Güvener in 1988. Citing health problems, she gave up the violin in 2017 and passed away in Ankara in June 2023, at age 86.