Orhan Gencebay

Orhan Gencebay — Biography

Born Orhan Kencebay to a family of Crimean Tatar descent, he came into the world in Samsun on 4 August 1944. At six he took violin and mandolin lessons from the Crimean-émigré musician Emin Tarakçı, and at seven he began studying bağlama; he wrote his first composition at ten and his first professional piece at fourteen. His 1964 exam for TRT Ankara was annulled over an irregularity, sending him instead into military service; in 1966 he passed the TRT Istanbul exam and, that same year, placed in a national bağlama contest alongside Arif Sağ and Cinuçen Tanrıkorur. Frustrated with the broadcaster's restrictive outlook, he resigned in 1967, and in those years he accompanied many singers with Arif Sağ and directed the music for films such as Ana and Kuyu.

The 1969 single Bir Teselli Ver made him famous nationwide, and in 1972 he and Yaşar Kekeva founded the Kervan record label, which signed stars like Ajda Pekkan and Sezen Aksu; his brother Burhan Kencebay ran the company for many years, a role his own son Altan now holds. He took leading roles in roughly thirty-five films and scored close to ninety more, retiring from acting after 1990 and never returning to it. He rejects the "arabesque" label, calling his output free Turkish music instead; with more than sixty-five million records sold, he received an honorary doctorate in 1990, was named a State Artist in 1998, won a Kral TV honor award in 2011, and was appointed to Turkey's Presidential Council on Culture and Arts Policy in 2018.