Atilla Atasoy

Atilla Atasoy — Biography

Attila Atasoy was born on 10 December 1953 in Muğla; he spent his childhood in Marmaris and Antalya and his teenage years in Ankara. After graduating from the Pharmacy Institute, he built on mandolin lessons he had begun at age five with theatre, ballet and modern-dance training before settling on the guitar and turning to composing.

He first appeared on camera in 1971 on a television contest, and was introduced as a composer-singer the following year, performing his own compositions and folk-music arrangements on Ankara Radio and Television. His debut record, Anam / Cüce, came out in 1974, but he became widely known after placing second in the 1975 Turkish Eurovision qualifiers with Dilenci, for which Hey magazine named him its Promising Singer that year. He won awards abroad in Tunisia, Bulgaria and Sweden, including two special prizes at the 1982 Golden Orpheus festival in Bulgaria. He returned to attention in 1987 with Farzet ki Ben Seni Hiç Tanımadım, and in 1989 his composition Yaz Yağmuru placed third at the Golden Dove competition.

In the 1980s Atasoy was linked in the press to singer Nilgün Belgün; he later married economist Füsun Fesli, with whom he had a daughter, Ada, born in 1995, before the couple divorced in 1999. He stopped practicing as a pharmacist in 2011 and published his first book, a travel memoir, in 2016. In 2022 he gave an interview reflecting on the 51 years since his first record, released a new single in 2023, and again drew press coverage in 2026 with remarks about his career.