Coşkun Sabah

Coşkun Sabah — Biography

Composer and singer Coşkun Sabah was born on 16 October 1952 in Diyarbakır to an ethnic Assyrian family; his mother's name was Roza. The family moved to Istanbul in 1965. Active as a songwriter from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, he wrote more than a hundred compositions blending Turkish art music, pop and fantezi styles into what he called "the Coşkun Sabah style," and became one of the era's most popular performers, earning the nickname "the Frank Sinatra of Turkey." His 1990 cassette Beni Unutma-Aşığım Sana sold roughly three million copies, making it one of Turkey's all-time best-selling releases, alongside other widely known songs such as Hatıram Olsun, Anılar and Aşk Kitabı. During his peak years he performed at Sies, a venue he ran himself, and was involved in several lawsuits against record labels over unauthorized album releases. In 1997 he designed, but never patented, an electric oud that he has performed with ever since, and he is regarded as one of the leading oud virtuosos of recent decades. He also acted in films including Bir Pazar Günü, Benimsin and Anılar. He is married with two daughters; his brother Taşkın works as an arranger, while another brother, Bülent, is a violinist and oud player based in Australia. He continues to perform in concerts across Turkey today.