a great deal about string quartets: they became great friends. In 1939 he was invited back to Ankara to further promote Western musical activities and practices. A year later he formed his own organization, Ses ve Tel Birliği, which showcased recitals and concerts throughout the country, further developing public knowledge of Western classical music. Saygun's international acclaim flourished with his oratorio Yunus Emre in 1946. This is an hour-long work written for four vocal soloists, a full chorus and full orchestra that sets a number of poems by the 13th century Anatolian mystic poet Yunus Emre. This work captures Yunus Emre's legacy with the use of Turkish modes and folk melodies, although it is written in the post-romantic style. Since its premiere in Ankara in 1947, the oratorio has been translated into five languages and performed worldwide, including a performance in English at the United Nations led by conductor Leopold Stokowski with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1958. This same year he won the Stella della solidarietà and the Jean Sibelius composition awards. The success of Yunus Emre encouraged Saygun to compose further large-scale works. In the 1950s he wrote three new operas, his first two symphonies, a piano concerto, and several pieces of chamber music pieces, of which a Paris premiere of the first string quartet (1954) and a premiere of the second string quartet (1958) in New York City performed by the Juilliard String Quartet gained him further international exposure. There followed, amongst other works, three more symphonies, concertos for violin and viola and a second piano concerto, and a third string quartet. A fourth quartet remained unfinished at his death. Saygun was known not only as a composer but also as a scholar as he wrote and published many books on the teaching of music. He was also an ethnomusicologist and a teacher. He greatly influenced the development of western music in Turkey and helped to establish several new music conservatories, and was also a member of the National Education Council and the board of the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation. Starting in 1972, he taught composition and ethnomusicology at the Istanbul State Conservatory (later connected to the Mimar Sinan University and named "Mimar Sinan State Conservatory" in 1986). Following his death, the Ahmet Adnan Saygun Center for Music Research at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, was founded where his original manuscripts and archives are also kept.