Ümit Besen

Ümit Besen — Biography

Born on 14 October 1956 in Osmaniye, Ümit Besen went on to become a well-known Turkish musician, pianist and actor, remembered above all for the melancholy love songs he recorded in the 1980s. He started out on the melodica, switched to keyboards in high school and formed the band Tayfunlar Orkestrası, then left his studies unfinished once he found he could not balance them with music. During his compulsory military service in Kütahya in 1976, a brigadier-general who heard him play arranged for his posting to an officers' club in Zonguldak; once his service ended he went back to nightclub work in Adana, where the footballer Metin Oktay recommended him to contacts in Istanbul, and his career there continued on the stage of Köşem Bistro. The first record he released, in 1980 with the songwriting pair Ahmet Selçuk İlkan and Selami Şahin, became a commercial hit.

He re-recorded his enduring 1980s hit Nikah Masası as a 2015 duet with Ajda Pekkan, backed by the Enbe Orchestra, and the following year gave his best-known older material fresh rock arrangements on the album Başka, featuring duets with Cem Adrian, Pamela and Feridun Düzağaç. On screen he took roles in Olur Olur! (2014), Seni Seviyorum (1986) and Nikah Masası (1982).

Besen lost his father, Fikret Besen, in June 2023, and in December 2025 he drew attention when it emerged that his law-graduate daughter Ezgi Besen serves as a member judge at a heavy penal court in Edirne. In 2024 a wedding hall at the Güzelyalı Culture Center in İzmir was named after him.