Ahmet Özhan

Ahmet Özhan — Biography

Ahmet Özhan, born Ahmet Şükrü Katıöz on August 26, 1950, in Şanlıurfa, was the youngest child of a police-officer father from a Rumelian family. He trained in music from 1967 at the Istanbul Municipal Conservatory and the Üsküdar Musical Society, studying directly under masters such as Emin Ongan, Recep Birgit and Cinuçen Tanrıkorur, and made his first professional stage appearance in 1968 at the Bebek municipal casino.

Between 1981 and 1991 he was a vocalist for TRT Istanbul Radio, then helped found the Istanbul Historical Turkish Music Ensemble in 1991 and led it as artistic director for many years. From the early 1980s he became a leading figure in reviving Sufi devotional music, and he has performed as soloist at Konya's Şeb-i Arûs ceremonies commemorating Rumi since 1980. He also built a film career beginning with Çocuğumu İstiyorum. He was named a State Artist in 1998, received several Golden Butterfly awards and, in 2024, the Presidential Grand Award for Culture and Arts, and holds an honorary doctorate from Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University (2013). In September 2022, following the death of Ömer Tuğrul İnançer, he became the 22nd postnişin of the Cerrahi branch of the Halvetiyye order and chairman of its affiliated foundation's board of trustees.