Nizamettin Ariç

Nizamettin Ariç — Biography

Nizamettin Ariç is a Kurdish musician, composer and director born in Ağrı in 1956; his family relocated to Ankara in 1971. Raised on the traditional dengbêj singing style, he joined TRT's Ankara Radio in 1976, though before 1980 most of what he performed publicly was Turkish-language folk material, some of it translated by himself from Kurdish. A 1979 hometown concert in Ağrı, at which he sang a Kurdish love song, cost him his job at TRT and led to a propaganda prosecution; facing a severe sentence, he left the country after the 1980 military coup and sought asylum in Germany, where he has lived in Berlin ever since.

Recording under the pseudonym Feqiyê Teyra, he left a mark on musicians back in Turkey, Kardeş Türküler chief among them, and became the subject, alongside Şivan Perwer and Ciwan Haco, of the book Üç Kürt Ozanın Hikayesi (Story of Three Kurdish Bards). He wrote, directed and starred in A Song for Beko, counted among the earliest Kurdish-language feature films, which collected more than fifteen international prizes across festivals from Venice to Fribourg. He has also composed film scores, including for Erden Kiral's Dilan and Don Askarian's Komitas.