Kan began playing violin at age five. At age nine she gave her first public concerts with the Presidential Symphony Orchestra, performing Mozart's A major and Viotti's A minor violin concertos. She continued her studies in Ankara under Walter Gerhard, Izzet Albayrak, and Lico Amar. In 1949 she was sent to France on scholarship, under a special law passed by the Turkish Grand National Assembly. She graduated from the Conservatoire de Paris in 1952, where she studied with Gabriel Bouillon.
Upon returning to Turkey in the 1960s, she gave concerts in Anatolia, first with the Turkish pianist Ferhunde Erkin and then regularly with Gülay Uğurata for 29 years. After Uğurata's death, she formed a duo with the pianist Cana Gürmen.
Suna Kan's concert tours covered most parts of the world, including England, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Russia, China, Japan, South America, Canada, and the United States. She has performed with many international orchestras such as the London Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony, Residentie Orchestra (the Netherlands), Moscow Symphony, French National Radio Symphony (ORTF) under conductors like István Kertész, Arthur Fiedler, Walter Susskind, Hans Rosbaud, Zubin Mehta, Gotthold Lessing, Louis Frémaux, and Michel Plasson.[citation needed] She also collaborated with artists such as Yehudi Menuhin, Igor Bezrodny, Pierre Fournier, André Navarra, and Frederick Riddle.
In the 1970s Suna Kan founded the TRT Ankara Chamber Orchestra together with conductor Gürer Aykal and her husband, music critic Faruk Güvenç. She played with the orchestra as a solo violinist and a member of the violin group. Beginning in 1986, in addition to her concerts, broadcasts and recording activities, she was professor of violin at the Music and Performing Arts Department of Bilkent University in Ankara.
In 1971, she received the honorary title of State Artist from the Turkish government. She was also awarded "Chevalier dans l'ordre National du Merite" by the Government of France. In 1996 she received the Sevda Cenap And Foundation Golden Medal, a prize offered to the distinctive performers and artists of classical music in Turkey. In 1997, the book Suna Kan: The Violin Heartfeltly Played by Müşerref Hekimoğlu was published by the same foundation.
Kan was a pioneer in interpreting the works of Turkish symphonic compositions written for violin. She performed violin concertos by Necil Kazim Akses, Ahmed Adnan Saygun, and Ulvi Cemal Erkin.
Kan made few recordings, in part because during her most productive years, recording business in Turkey was inactive. Her few recordings, some of them from live concerts, include Ulvi Cemal Erkin's Violin Concertos with Presidential Symphony Orchestra and Munich Philharmonic, and all the violin concertos of Mozart with TRT Ankara Chamber Orchestra. One of her most popular recordings was with Corrado Galzio on pianoforte and Kan on violino performing Brahms, Grieg, Debussy, Bartok, and Dvorak.