"bio":"<h2>Dadaloğlu</h2><p>Dadaloğlu was a minstrel folk poet (est. 1785-1868) with Afshar Turkmen origins. Afshar is one of the nomadic Oghuz tribes that moved from Central Asia to Eastern Turkey. Under the rule of Ottoman Empire, Afshar people were relocated to the South-East of Anatolia to maintain the majority of people as Turkic in the region and keep rebellious tribes from different ethnic roots under control.</p><p>Dadaloğlu is famous for voicing the discontent of Afshar people who were forced to leave their homes regarding these policies of the Ottoman Empire.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Dede Korkut</h2><p>The Book of Dede Korkut or Korkut Ata is a heroic dastan(legend) of the Oghuz Turks dating back to the 6th century BCE. The stories reflect the social lifestyle of the nomadic Turkic peoples when they followed shamanic beliefs. In the stories Dede Korkut appears as the respected elder, the sage and is believed to be a real person by some of the historians. The epics were orally told and transferred over the generations by Ashiks. Only after Turks converted to Islam the twelve stories were written down and many shamanic references were altered or abandoned.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Kul Nesimi</h2> <p>Kul Nesimi was an ashik who lived in 17th century and was a dervish of the Bektash-i sufi lodge. He was inspired greatly from Yunus Emre and like Pir Sultan, he was the supporter of Persian Shah against the Ottoman Empire.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Ashik Ali İzzet</h2> <p>Ashik Ali İzzet (1902-1981) was an Alevi folk poet who moved to the capital from Sivas in 1940’s. His poems gets published, starts performing in folk community centers and teaching cura instrument with Ashik Veysel. He gets sentenced several times for being involved in communist propaganda. He was also a strong follower of the Bekhtas-i longe and traveled to Alevi villages visiting ‘cem’ gathering houses.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Aşık Mahzuni Şerif</h2> <p> Aşık Mahzuni Şerif (1939-2002) was one of the most famous Alevi folk poet who expressed his political views with his poetry and published articles on newspapers. He was sentenced several times for his ideas and politically charged lyrics and in 1971 he was banned of performing for 8 years. Nevertheless his songs and poems continued to be performed by musicians of various genres to this day.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Karacaoğlan</h2> <p>Karacaoğlan was a folk poet and ashik (est. 1600-1690) believed to have lived in the South East Anatolia. He chanted mostly about love, nature and Anatolian settlements and did not concentrate much on islamic themes or on love of God. He was much appreciated after the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 for his usage of simple language and choice of folk vocabulary and was a great influence on the modern lyric poetry.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Ashik Veysel<h2> <p>Ashik Veysel(1894-1973) was one of the most famous Ashik of the late Ottoman, early republic times. In 1930’s Ashik Veysel became the national poet of the republic but his Alevi root was not fully recognized. He was one of the teachers at the Hasanoğlu Village Institute (1942-1947) and thought playing cura. He’s been an inspiration and a master for many western educated musicians of modern Turkey.</p> ",
"bio":"<h2>Neşet Ertaş</h2> <p> Neşet Ertaş (1938-2012) was a folk poet, a modern ashik and son of Turkish folk singer Muharrem Ertaş. In his teenage years he moved to Ankara and started performing in national radio station (TRT) and in night clubs during the night. In 1978 his fingers became paralyzed which forced him to move to Germany where his brother lived. There he recovered and started performing again at wedding ceremonies and teaching at the school of arts. Even though he lived abroad for about 30 years, when he returned to Turkey, the public of his homeland welcomed him with a great attendance to his concerts all around Anatolia. </p>",
"bio":"<h2>Muharrem Ertaş</h2> <p>Muharrem Ertaş (1913-1984) was a Turkish folk singer and one of the most important executant of Bozlak (a form of Turkish folk song) genre. He played and sang poems and ballads of many ashiks like Karacaoğlan, Pir Sultan Abdal, Dadaloğlu. He instructed his son Neşet Ertaş in playing the cura instrument.</p> ",
"bio":"<h2>Ali Ekber Çiçek</h2> <p>Ali Ekber Çiçek(1935-2006) became familiar with the Alevi culture and learned to play the cura at gatherings called Cem. He was employed at the İstanbul Radio and compiled hundreds of folk songs. He is the author of 'Haydar Haydar', a folk song that took him almost 3 years to master.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Dedemoğlu</h2> <p>Dedemoğlu was a Turkmen ashik from 19th century. His ballads tell the story of migration for the sake of ‘iskan’, Ottoman relocation policy, in Anatolia. Turkmen communities were used to change the demography of new conquest territory and border zones. </p>",
"bio":"<h2>Pir Sultan Abdal</h2> <p>Pir Sultan Abdal, an important Alevi-Bektaş-i (follower of Hacı Bektaş-i Veli) poet and dervish of the 16th century, was a political figure and would speak his mind about equality believing in sharing all except for women. In those years there were riots in Anatolia and they started in guidance of sufi lodges and the leaders of them. Pir Sultan was a supporter of the Iranian Shah (King) and expressed his ideas against the Ottoman Pashas. With the orders of the palace against provocateurs, Pir Sultan was captured and later hanged by Hızır Pasha (the mayor of Sivas). </p><p>His legend grew more with this terrible event, stories were told and many other cura poets under same name started to appear. He left behind a big collection of poems that often guides researchers and historians in understanding the Anatolian folk and their relation with the palace.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Yunus Emre</h2> <p>Yunus Emre (1238-1328), a Turkish folk poet and Sufi mystic, was one of the first known poets to have composed works in the spoken Anatolian Turkish. He was influenced by Alevism and followed Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli. He wrote in poetry form with inspired by the oral folklore tradition that he had encountered. His poems were concerned with divine love and human destiny.</p>"
"bio":"<h2>Kaygusuz Abdal</h2> <p>Kaygusuz Abdal (1341- ?) was born in Alanya (Alaiye) in Southern Anatolia and was also known as Alayi Gaybi (Alaeddin Gaybi). We learn about his life from his saga piece ‘Menakıpname’ which includes the story about his pseudonym. According to the epic, young Gaybi goes hunting and wounds a gazelle with his arrow right below the arm. The wounded gazelle runs towards the lodge of Abdal Musa and goes in. Gaybi runs after it, goes in the lodge and asks the dervishes about the gazelle. He tells his story in presence of Abdal Musa and asks the gazelle back. Abdal Musa pulls the arrow out of his body and says ‘Is this your arrow son?’. When Gaybi recognizes his arrow he surrenders to Abdal Musa and stays at his lodge to follow his teachings. Menkıpname tells: Gaybi left his aristocratic identity. Accepted the dervish path and abandoned the wealth of material world. Isolated his soul from the attachments of the worldly desires. </p><p>This is why Abdal Musa said to him, ‘Gaybi, you are healed from the inquietudes of the world, from now on you’ve become Kaygusuz (meaning freed from worries)’. His usage of the Turkish language was simple and poetic forms were very diverse. Inspired greatly from the work of Yunus Emre, he wrote on islamic mysticism, religion, doctrines and cults.</p>"
"bio":"<h2>Ahmed Yesevi</h2> <p>Ahmed Yesevi (1093-1166) was a mystic and an Alevi Turkmen poet known as the architect of the islamic mystic movement called Yesevilik. His doctrines influenced the Alevi-Bektaşi Cult and the Sunni communities of local and migrant Turkic folk as well as other islamic countries of Middle East. He thought islamic values with simple language structures and communicated with methods familiar to the public. He is known more for his ideas rather than as a literary figure.</p>"
"bio":"<h2>Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi</h2><p>Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi (1207-1273). Mevlana’s philosophies and teachings are well known and appreciated around the world. He is one of the most influential islamic thinker and mystic poet who came to Anatolia with his family escaping the Mongolian invasions in the middle east. Like his father, he taught values of islam to the Anatolian folk. He often traveled to Damascus and Aleppo to improve himself. At one of his trips he met Şemsi Tebrizî, an Iranian mystic and sheik, whom later came to Konya and became Mevlana’s partner on the path to divine love.</p><p> Making time only for their conversations, Mevlana stopped preaching. Their close relationship caused problem in the community and to avoid conspiracies Şemsi Tebrizi left Konya. His absence caused great pain to Mevlana and pushed him into poetry. Mevlana’s doctrine advocates unlimited tolerance, positive reasoning, goodness, charity and awareness through love.</p>"
"bio":"<h2>Hacı Bektaş-i Veli</h2><p>Hacı Bektaş-i Veli (1209-1271) was a Shi’i mystic and leader of the dervish order named after him. Although there are different views, he is mostly recognized as the follower of Ahmed Yesevi and had a big role in spreading his teachings in Anatolia. In the first years of Ottoman Empire he had a great influence in development of social structure. The lodge of Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli became central for the Alevi communities and still today plays a key role in spreading their beliefs and world views. </p><p>There are different views about his history. According to the Ottoman historian Aşıkpaşazade Dervish Ahmet Ashiki (15th c.), Hacı Bektaş-i Veli was sufi who was carried away by the mystical experience and had no lodge or followers. According to this historian Hatun Ana or Kadıncık Ana (woman mother) was his adoptive daughter and that he left his teachings and prophecies to her and that she shared them with Abdal Musa.</p>"
"bio":"<h2>Nazım Hikmet</h2><p>Nazım Hikmet (1902-1963) was a communist poet, playwright, novelist. Because of his political beliefs he spent most of his adult life either in prison or in exile. His work was appreciated world wide and has been translated to fifty languages. His poems has been composed and performed as a song by musicians of various genre and era. Ran had Polish and Turkish citizenship. The latter was revoked in 1959, and restored in 2009. He was in exile when he died in Russia where he is buried. His final wish, never carried out, was to be buried under a plane-tree in any village cemetery inAnatolia. </p><p>He was influenced by the young Soviet poets and when he came back to Turkey, he brought stylistic innovations in poetry, theater plays and film scripts. Breaking the boundaries of syllabic meter, he changed his form and began writing in free verse, which harmonised with the rich vocal properties of the Turkish language.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Ahmed Arif</h2><p>Ahmed Arif (1927-1991) was a half Kurdish half Turkish poet and a journalist that defended communist political views and followed socialist realist movement in his works. His poems have been composed into songs by musicians of different generations and genres. </p>"
"bio":"<h2>Gülten Akın</h2><p>Gülten Akın (1933-2015) was a poet, lawyer and a teacher who wrote about women, urban life and poverty, immigration and conviction. She lived in various regions of Anatolia due to her husband’s job as district governor. She worked in community centers and Human Rights Association. Sezen Aksu, the Queen of Turkish Pop, composed one of her poems, ‘Deli Kızın Türküsü’ into a song and named her album after it. Gülten Akın is one of the most appreciated female poets of Turkey who broke the preconceptions about female poets in the Turkish cultural field mainly dominated by male writers.</p>"
"bio":"<h2>Nilgün Marmara</h2><p>Nilgün Marmara (1958-1987) was a poet whose work was not published in her life time. She was the daughter of an immigrant family who came to İstanbul from Bulgaria. She was born in İstanbul and studied English literature in Boğaziçi University. She wrote her thesis on Slyvia Plath’s poetry and its relation with the writer’s suicide. She shared her work only with other contemporary writers who nicknamed her ‘Zelda’ after the wife of Fitzgerald and because of her marginal style. Her poems are introversive and studies the layers of the subconscious and essence of self/ego. As a result of her mental struggels, she commits suicide by jumping off the balcony of her house and dies at 29 years old.</p>"
"bio":"<h2>Atilla İlhan</h2><p>Atilla İlhan (1925-2005) was a Turkish poet, novelist, senarist, journalist and critic from İzmir. His troubles with authority starts when he was in highschool. He gets caught with a poem of Nazım Hikmet and was banned from school life for 3 years. He spent the 1950’s traveling between Paris, İstanbul and İzmir while defending Nazım Hikmet, escaping disquisitions, learning French and Marksizim. When he returned to Turkey, he became a journalist and started writing film critics. He started writing the poem ‘Mahur’ in response to the execution of Marxist-Leninist activists, Deniz Gezmiş, Yusuf Aslan and Hüseyin İnan in 1972. This poem was made into a song by Ahmet Kaya in 1993.</p>"
"bio":"<h2>Lale Müldür</h2><p>Lale Müldür (1956) is a poet and writer from Aydın. She is considered to be the most influential writer of the last decades. She lived in UK and in Belgium, wrote a column for Radikal newspaper. Some of her poems have been made into song and her book ‘Mom, am I barbarian?’ became the title of the 13th İstanbul Biennale.</p>"
"bio":"<h2>Neyzen Tevfik</h2> Neyzen Tevfik (1879-1953). Tevfik Kolaylı was a ney player and a poet who had a critical approach against injustice and corruption. He had to stop his education due to epileptic seizures and started going to the Mevlevi lodge where he practiced Ney and studied Turkish, Arabic and Persian with Şair Eşref who also thought him satire. He met important writers and poets of the time through his father’s connections. </p><p> Because of his speeches against oppression of the Ottoman Empire, he was taken under custody for a short period and was denounced many times. He became a dervish at the Bektas-i longe. He was a supporter of the republic and the revolutions and wrote poems that talked about the Liberation War and Atatürk. Even though his drinking problem and sharp tongue caused him trouble, he never stoped stating his opinion and continued talking his philosophic mind even at the mental hospital and continued producing until his death.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Melih Cevdet Anday</h2><p>Melih Cevdet Anday (1915-2002) was a Turkish poet, playwright, novelist who brought innovations to poetry with the movement ‘Garip’ (bizzare) with his poet friends Orhan Veli and Oktay Rifat. Later he also followed a more philosophical poetry approach. Because he was often dismissed from newspapers for his ideas, he started writing with pseudonyms. In 1956 his poetry book ‘Yan Yana’ was prohibited. His poem ‘Şinanay’ was made into a song by Sezen Aksu and became one of her most known song in the 1990’s.</p>"
"bio":"<h2>Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı</h2><p>Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı (1910-1956) was a Turkish poet, author and translator. He was born in Diyarbakır to a wealthy family and completed his high school studies in French in İstanbul. He went to Paris for university education but had to return due to the Second World War. He starts writing poetry in high school inspired by the French writer Charles Baudelaire. He writes about bohemian life, joy of life and death and solitude. Many of his poems were composed into different Maqam of Turkish classical music but his most famous poem ‘Age Thirty-five’ became the most known after Pop singer Hümeyra sang in one of her albums in 1975.</p>"
"bio":"<h2>Orhan Veli</h2><p>Orhan Veli (1914-1950) was one of the founders of the ‘Garip’ poetry movement in Turkey and aimed to replace old structures by using street talk in his poetry. He refused using the syllabic meter and aruz prosody to come up with new systems. He was criticized and undermined for abandoning the traditional methods. His approach helped to close the gap between the public and intellectual class. His poems were composed into songs by Cem Karaca, Levent Yüksel, Özdemir Erdoğan, Hümeya and many more.</p>"
"bio":"<h2>Metin Altıok</h2><p>Metin Altıok (1940-1993) was a poet from İzmir who got published in the 1970’s. His poetry was influenced from the poetry movements and themes of the 1960’s. He used a simple language and used forms of folk poetry. He thought philosophy in high schools in Bingöl where he was exiled. He was one of the intellectuals who couldn’t survive The Sivas massacre in 1993 which was an event that killed 37 people, mostly Alevi intellectuals, that had gathered in the Hotel Madimak for the Pir Sultan Abdal festival and were killed when a mob of radical islamists set fire to the hotel. One of his poems have been composed by Onno Tunç and performed by Sezen Aksu and another one was composed by Fazıl Say and performed by Serenad Bağcan.</p>"
"bio":"<h2>Ruhi Su</h2><p>Ruhi Su (1912-1985) was also one of the teachers of this institute and he had a different back ground. He was one of the first musicians to be trained in the conservatory with western methods (like opera singing). He used his training and combined it with the folkloric traditions. He also made albums chanting the poems of Nazım Hikmet, 20th century poet who’s citizenship was deprived due to his political views. </p><p> Ruhi Su also trained women musicians such as Tülay German and Sümeyra Çakır and they also followed his path in merging western voice techniques and instruments with the Anatolian folkloric traditions, sounds and songs. Rock and Jazz tunes became popular and they were exciting for the new generation musicians who now had the necessary means to produce themselves.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Asu Maralman</h2><p>Asu Maralman (1948) In her original name, Silvia Bursalıoğlu is an Armenian musician from Turkey. She made part of the 1970’s musical movement and recorded folk songs and ballads with a western styled orchestra and her then husband Orhan Şevki.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Ceylan Ertem</h2><p>Ceylan Ertem (1980) is a musician from Adapazarı with Circassian origins. She started her musical life in 1992 and have performed in various bands and projects in different genres. She’s been concentrating on her solo career since 2010 and have made covers of many folk songs, ballads as well as songs of Turkish classical music.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Ahmet Kaya</h2> <p>Ahmet Kaya (1957-2000) was a Kurdish-Turkish folk singer from Malatya. He learned playing cura (saz-bağlama) from a very young age with the encouragement of his uncle and father. His life evolved around music and he started performing in the region. They moved to İstanbul with his family due to financial difficulties and he starting doing various jobs. He met Ruhi Su and sang his famous ballad ‘Mahsus Mahal’ at an event in Boğaziçi University.</p><p> He published his first album in 1984 and a second one in 1985. He made albums with songs made from poems of political prisoners of his time like Nevzat Çelik or Arkadaş Z. Özger as well as poets of older generations like Atilla İlhan, Ahmed Arif, Can Yücel. He made 22 albums and had only one song in Kurdish. This was because of the policies and prohibitions of the Turkish Government against Kurdish people and their ethnic identity. </p><p>At an award ceremony, he received his awarding the name of Human Rights Association, Saturday Mothers, laborers of the press and whole folk of Turkey. In his speech he announced that he is going to release an album with a Kurdish song which will be put in circulation with a video clip. His speech caused anger in the room and he got attacked verbally by other musicians. Following this event a newspaper published a photo from a concert in Berlin with fault accusations of him supporting the Kurdish guerrilla PKK. Following this there has been several cases against him for which he defended himself. He left Turkey in 1999 and in March 2000 he got charged with almost 4 years of imprisonment for spreading separatist propaganda. Later that year he died from a heart attack in Paris at age 43.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Fazıl Say</h2><p>Fazıl Say (1970) is a Turkish pianist and composer born in Ankara. He was a child prodigy and he started training in music when 3 years old. Today he is one of the most appreciated and talented composer in the world. His music often captures and transforms melodic ideas and tunes from folk music of Turkey and its neighbors. He takes great inspiration from poetry and writers such as Nazım Hikmet and Metin Altıok and composes works for soloists, chorus and orchestra.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Selda Bağcan</h2><p>Selda Bağcan (1948) is a Turkish folk singer-songwriter and music producer and today she is very well known by the music industry around the world. She started her career in 1971 by interpreting traditional Turkish folk songs. She released twelve singles and three LP records and toured in Turkey and western Europe. Her songs carried strong social criticism and solidarity with the poor and working class. This made her popular among the left-wing activists in the politically polarized climate of the 1970’s.</p><p> After the 1980 Turkish coup d’état, she was persecuted by the military rulers due to her political songs and was imprisoned three times between 1981 and 1984. Her music continued responding to the political events and disasters happening in the country. Her music has been sampled by musicians outside of Turkey like Mog Def, Dr. Dre or 2manydjs.</p>"
"bio":"<h2>Sezen Aksu</h2><p>Sezen Aksu (1954) is a singer, composer and song writer whom is also referred as ‘Queen of Turkish Pop’ and ‘Little Sparrow’. She started her professional career in mid 1970’s with few extended-plays and started performing live in night clubs of the time. In 1980’s her success grew with new songs she made in collaboration with Onno Tunç. She worked as a producer in 1990’s and helped young vocalists like Sertap Erener, Aşkın Nur Yengi, Levent Yüksel,whom later became famous pop stars of the country. In 1993 she made the album ‘Deli Kızın Türküsü’ which included the same titled poem of Gülten Akın. She also made albums with traditional ballads and with poems by Yunus Emre, Mevlana. She fights against misogyny, discrimination, homophobia and injustices.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Büyük Ev Ablukada</h2><p>Büyük Ev Ablukada is a band founded in İstanbul in 2008. They became well-known in short time with their own songs in alternative music scene of İstanbul. The name of the band is borrowed from the title of Turgut Uyar’s poem and they occasionally include verses from other poets as well.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Sümeyra Çakır</h2><p>Sümeyra Çakır (1946-1990) was another musician who used folk music to express ideas and to unite people in resistance. Her music career started in her university years after meeting Ruhi Su at the evening classes of the conservatory. Following this she started chanting only folk songs and in 1975 they started the “Chorus of Friends” together with Ruhi Su. Their repertoire had folk songs from Cura Poets such as Pir Sultan Abdal and Köroğlu. In late 70’s she started doing concerts in Europe and mostly in Germany to an audience of working class immigrated from Turkey starting from the 60’s. In 1980, because she sung the communist international anthem at the East Berlin political songs festival, an inquiry started about her political stand in Turkey and after this she couldn't go back and continued her life/career in Europe. She was giving concerts all over Europe but was specially active in East and West Germany.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Cem Karaca</h2><p>Cem Karaca (1954-2004), coming from an Azarbaijani father and an Armenian mother, was one of the most important figures in the Anatolian rock movement. He produced together with bands like Moğollar, Apaşlar, Kardaşlar and Dervişan until he left for West Germany in 1979 to avoid accusations of the government which portrayed him as a separatist thinker and a Marxist-Leninist. After the 1980 Turkish coup d’état a warrant was issued for his arrest so he decided not to come back. He was strip off his Turkish citizenship and the arrest warrant was kept active until 1987. After his return he continued producing solo albums and kept his critical tone. He became the major figure in the Anatolian rock scene by producing eastern traditional folk songs, and composing poems of Nazım Hikmet, Ahmed Arif, into songs with western rock style.</p> ",
"bio":"<h2>Barış Manço</h2><p>Barış Manço (1943-1999) was a Turkish Rock musician, singer, songwriter, composer, television producer and show host. He was one of the founders of the Anatolian rock genre and one of the most popular public figures of Turkey. In the 1963 he moved to Europe and formed bands with local musicians recording songs mainly in English, French and Turkish. He also formed a band with Turkish musicians, Mazhar Alanson and Fuat Güner but had to end this collaboration when those two returned to Turkey. In the 1970’s he formed Kurtalan Ekspres, a legendary band that accompanied him until his death. In 1990’s he worked in television and produced shows that reached to a wide audience including children. </p>",
"bio":"<h2>Ayfer Vardar</h2><p>Ayfer Vardar (1984) is a folk music singer and performer from Erzurum. She was trained at the Pir Sultan Abdal cultural centre and Istanbul Technical University Conservatoire. She made albums that compiled generations of traditional sounds and ballads.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Tülay German</h2><p>Tülay German (1935) started her music career when she was a child and continued in post high school years, beginning of 60’s, she started taking stage in secret from her parents. She slowly became famous as a Jazz singer and started singing on a famous weekly radio program. She took lessons from Ruhi Su and made covers of songs from famous Ashiks of the time. With Erdem Buri (later husband) they made a program called 'Polyphonic Turkish Pop Music' and later made the first Anatolian Pop record 'Burçak Tarlası // Vetch Field' which was a cover of an Anatolian folk song by the folk poet Kör Şakir // Şakir the blind. </p><p>Because of Buri’s political views he was in trial facing 15 years of prison. He decided to run away and German joined him in this political exile. They moved to Paris and she continued making records with the record label Philips. Later on, in empathy(?) of the violent political depression going on in Turkey, she decided to end her contract and concentrated her music to folk tunes and poems voicing the concerns of many exiled like herself in Europe.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Ezhel</h2><p>Ezhel (1991) Sercan ipekçioğlu is a rapper, singer and songwriter from Ankara. He first started performing reggae tunes under the name Ais Ezhel until 2017. His solo album ‘Müptezel’ came out in 2017 and became extremely popular among young people. He got arrested in 2018 accused of ‘inciting drug use’ in his songs. This created a big reaction from the public and other artists. Hashtag ‘FreeEzhel’ became trendy on social media and international amnesty collected thousands of signatures for his release. In the end he got an acquittal but moved to Berlin to produce in total freedom.</p><p> Ezhel also plays cura and is strongly influenced by Neşet Ertaş and often refers to his lyrics in his songs. He often collaborates with immigrant rappers in Germany and Netherlands which connects the audience from Europe and Turkey to each other. He is one of the most promising musical figures of Turkey.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Neşe Karaböcek</h2><p>Neşe Karaböcek (1947) was a singer that started performing from a very young age. She starts performing in theater plays even before she goes to elementary school. She tries all kinds of music genres through her career on stage. Like many others from her generation, she made covers and western arrangements of traditional folk songs.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Erkin Koray</h2><p>Erkin Koray (1941) is a Turkish singer-song writer, guitarist and one of the pioneers of Anatolian rock. In addition to his own compositions, he rearranged multiple well known Turkish folk songs and created the genre Arabesk-rock. It is said that he created the electronic cura to include it more in the rock music as well. Starting from 1970’s he started to be influenced by psychedelia and fuzz rock making albums featuring extended guitar solos and progressive arrangements. In 1974 he made the ground breaking album ‘electronic ballads’. He hasn’t been fully accepted with his style, music and lyrics by the governmental institutions until end of 1990’s. Today his work is appreciated and sampled all around the world while he lives in Vancouver Canada.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Fikret Kızılok</h2><p>Fikret Kızılok (1946-2001) was a young musician in the beginning of 60’s and at the time he was playing songs from Rolling Stones or Beatles at night clubs. At a trip with his friend, he met Ashik Veysel and made a cover of one of his ballads. Later he went back to Veysel’s village and stayed there for 3 month to learn from his master. He composed two poems of Veysel and decided to make songs about Anatolia. He started to compose using parts of poems from poets like Nazım Hikmet or Ahmed Arif. He wasn't the only one facing Anatolia and folk heritage. Many young musicians started to make covers of ballads combining them with the West tunes and calling it Anatolian Pop or Rock.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>3 Hürel</h2><p>3 Hürel (1970) is a Anatolian rock band founded by 3 brothers from Trabzon. They start performing together from a young age and continue after high school in İstanbul. Their biggest struggle is paying for the instruments. With their father they make a double handled cura-guitar which becomes the symbol of the band.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Levent Yüksel</h2><p>Levent Yüksel (1964) is a pop singer who became famous in the 1990’s with the support of Sezen Aksu while working with his then wife Sertab Erener. After 2000 his popularity faded but remained as a strong pop figure of the country. He made Orhan Veli’s poem ‘Dedikodu’ (Gossip) into a song.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Serdar Ateşer</h2><p>Serdar Ateşer (1961) is a musician and composer who worked for films and advertisements. He produced his own albums and did the musical directory for albums of important artists like Bülent Ortaçgil and Erkan Oğur. In his album ‘Avdet Seferi’ he composed a poem by Lale Müldür and another one by Murathan Mungan.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Fatma Hümeyra Akbay</h2><p>Fatma Hümeyra Akbay (1947) is a Turkish songwriter, singer, composer and actress. She started her professional career at the record company that she worked as a graphic designer. Her rearrangements of Turkish folk music songs became popular at the end of 1960’s. In 1970’s and 1980’s she composed many poems by older generation of poets and introduced them to younger generations. She’s been acting in musicals, films and tv series since 1980’s.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>Mazhar Fuat Özkan</h2><p>Mazhar Fuat Özkan MFÖ (1979) is a Turkish pop and rock band with Mazhar Alanson, Fuat Güner and Özkan Uğur as members. In 1960’s they all play with musicians of the time like Barış Manço, Fikret Kızılok , Erkin Koray etc. In 1971 Mazhar and Fuat record an album where they rearrange traditional ballads but fail commercially. Özkan started playing with them and released their first LP in 1984. Their songs touch daily issues, prejudices and influence from the Sufism and Sufist writers.</p>",
"bio":"<h2>İlhan Mimaroğlu</h2><p>İlhan Mimaroğlu (1926-2012) was a pioneer composer, music critic and writer from Turkey. Even though he moved to New York already in 1959 he kept his close relations with Turkey. He studied musicology in University of Colombia where he followed classes by Paul Henry Lang and Dogulas Moore. He starts teaching in the same university after getting his master degree in electronic music. He worked with Tülay German for the album ‘Tract: A Composition of Agistprop Music for Electromagnetic Tape’ with verses from Nazım Hikmet and Mahir Cayan, Bertold Brecht, Karl Marx and many more. He also made ’To Kill a Sunrise and La Ruche” which is a ‘requiem for those shot in the back’ referring to political executions all around the world.</p>",
