Candan Erçetin

Candan Erçetin (pronounced ['dʒandan 'ertʃetin]; born 10 February 1963) is a Turkish singer-songwriter. Over the twenty years of her singing career, she has been recognized for preparing and singing songs about human life. Despite the fact that she made her albums without much publicity, she was still appreciated for her efforts and her work influenced other artists. She was praised for not bringing her private life into the spotlight, and for holding her music on the front. Erçetin has released many music videos with different themes. As her family originate from the Balkans, she has often used elements of Balkan music in her songs and works, and in addition to Turkish, she has made songs in French and Greek as well. Erçetin was born in Kırklareli and is of Albanian and Macedonian ancestry. She later moved to Istanbul and attended Galatasaray High School. In the following years she got voice training. She later studied classical archeology at Istanbul University. In her final year at school, she recorded the song "Halley" and represented Turkey at the Eurovision Song Contest 1986 with the group Klips ve Onlar. However, she did not want to continue her musical career and kept studying archeology. In 1995, she released her debut album Hazırım, and in 1997 her song "Yalan" from the album Çapkın became a hit in Turkey. In 2000, she released her best-selling album Elbette, followed by the hit song "Gamsız Hayat" from the album Neden (2002). She subsequently released numerous other albums including Melek (2004), Kırık Kalpler Durağında (2009) and Milyonlarca Kuştuk... (2013). Alongside these works, she has released the albums Chante Hier Pour Aujourd'hui (2003) and Aranjman 2011 (2011), which include French songs, and the album Aman Doktor (2005) that features Greek songs. Apart from her music career, Erçetin has been involved in various other projects. In 1994, she started working as a TV presenter, and in 2007 she produced her own program Candan Erçetin'le Beraber ve Solo Şarkılar. In 2005, she was cast in a leading role in the musical Yıldızların Altında. She also composed the musics for the movies Gölgesizler (2008) and Kaptan Feza (2009) and served as a producer as well. For a while she taught music at Galatasaray High School, and in 2009 she started to teach diction at Galatasaray University. On 25 June 2013, Ünal Aysal appointed Erçetin and Umit Özdemir as Vice Chairmen of Galatasaray S.K.. For her contributions to France–Turkey relations, Erçetin was awarded with the Order of Arts and Letters by French President François Hollande in 2014. Throughout her career, she has won many awards and received various nominations.