Contributions of Nevit Kodallı to the development of Turkish opera and our nation universal singing repertoire

Kodallı was born in Mersin on the 12th of January in 1925. From his childhoodhe started to be busy with music by effect of his music love and his family and heinitially was educated in music by his brother Hayri Bey.After graduating from Mersin Secondary School in 1939, he entered theexamination of Ankara State Conservatory and he succeeds on it. He become a studentof composition under N. K. Akses. He practiced the piano with Ferhunde Erkin, studiedwith Ernst Praetorious and H. F. Alnar for conducting orchestra. In 1947 he graduatedfrom Advanced Composition and Conducting classes of the conservatory. And thenhaving been successful in a competition of the Ministry of (Public) Education he wentto Paris in order to advance his education of ?Ecole Normale de Musique? He studiedcomposition with Arthur Honneger, orchestration with Jean Fournet besides privatelessons for his piano education with Nadia Bolanger.Kodallı, who finished his education in 1953, after coming back to his nativecountry started as an instructor of counterpoint, form and instrumental studies foradvanced classes at Ankara State Conservatory. In addition he was also appointed to theposition of conductor at Ankara State Opera and Ballet.Nevit Kodallı, who was awarded the title of state artist in 1981, tried forconstitution and development of our national music circle, development of ourrepertoire of signing and opera, being introduced in area of our native music in abroad.He took part actively about development of polyphonic music in our country. Andfinally he gave so much works in different areas of music.Key Words: Form, contrepoint, opera, singing, polyphonic.