Sinan Özen

Sinan Özen — Biography

Sinan Özen is a Turkish folk music artist, composer and actor born on 1 March 1964 in the Çayeli district of Rize. He spent part of his childhood in İzmit and then Istanbul, finishing secondary school at the Rize Industrial Vocational High School; after winning a 1981 newspaper singing contest that led to no offers, he took solfeggio and notation lessons from Süheyla Altmışdört and oud lessons from Irfan Özbakır before entering the Istanbul State Conservatory in 1982.

He began his professional music career in 1989 with the album Rüyalarım Olmasa, going on to release close to eighteen studio albums and building a wide audience with songs such as Öpsene Beni and Sigaramın Dumanı Sen. Alongside his singing career he has also appeared in television series and films, and married pharmacist Burcu Kartal in 2016.