Ferhat Tunç

Ferhat Tunç

Ferhat Tunc is a Kurdish musician from Turkey.

The Kurdish Alevi singer Ferhat Tunç was born in 1964 in Turkey's eastern province ( North-Kurdistan) of (Dersim).

While Ferhat Tunç was in primary school, his father lived in Germany as a so-called "guest-worker" (immigrant labour invited by the German government). During high school he often performed as a singer at events of left-wing organisations. In 1974, he played his first performance to a full house at “Arkadas-Sinema” of Tunceli.

In the 1970s Tunceli was ridden by political conflicts between a fascist group called “The Grey Wolves”, the police and the army on the one side and students, workers and left wing intellectuals on the other side. Against this background in 1979 Ferhat Tunç emigrated to Germany upon graduating from high school. In 1982 while in Germany Ferhat Tunç recorded his debut album 'Kizilirmak' in a small sound studio in Bremen. In the same year he was introduced to the American musician Darnel Sumers with whom he set up his first band, along with three German and one Greek friend. The impressions from this new period of his life flew into his album 'Bu Yürek Bu Sevda Var Iken' which was released in 1984.

He started taking training lessons as a singer, but already after six months he abandoned the vocalist studies and instead went on tour in Germany with his band. He gave many concerts for an audience consisting of mainly Turkish and Kurdish people living in Germany. During this period he learned that if he were to return to Turkey, he could expect to be persecuted by the military government for his political activities, especially since the political situation after the military coup on 12 September 1980 had become increasingly violent and repressive

Even so, in 1985 Ferhat Tunç returned to Turkey for the first time since he had left his home country in 1979. As soon as he arrived he was arrested and brought to the prison camp DAL in Ankara. He was released after two weeks. Some of Ferhat Tunç's lyrics are written in the language of the Zaza and Kurmanci, which are regarded as languages of the Kurds. His concerts has often become meetings of the Kurdish resistance movement. He has supported strikes of the working class, the democratization of Turkey, the environmentalism and the free university of Istanbul, which practices critical teachings and research. He is also an active member of IHD, an association for human rights. His apparent oppositional attitude caused several arrests and long series of trials in the following years. In 2006 he went on tour to feature songs from his album entitled 'Ateşte sınandık' throughout Turkey. The concerts were held under the theme title 'Songs for Peace'. Since 2003 Ferhat Tunç has been working together with the film-maker Umur Hozatli on the film 'Perperik', which tells the story about a person's life as a Kurd in Turkey. This will be the first full-length feature film which is only in the Kurdish language.

Discography

• "Kızılırmak" in Germany (1982)
• "Bu Yürek Bu Sevda Var İken" in Germany (1984)
• "Vurgunum Hasretine" (1986)
• "Ay Işığı Yana Yana" (1987)
• "Yaşam Direnmektir" (1988)
• "İstanbul Konserleri-1" (1988)
• "Vuruldu" (1989)
• "Gül Vatan" (1990)
• "Ateş Gibi" (1991)
• "İstanbul Konserleri-2" (1992)
• "Firari Sevdam" (1993)
• "Özlemin Dağ Rüzgarı" (1994)
• "Kanı Susturun" (1995)
• "Kayıp" (1997)
• "Kavgamın Çiçeği" (1999)
• "Her Mevsim Bahardır" (2000)
• "Şarkılarım Tanıktır" (2002)
• "Nerdesin Ey Kardeşlik" (2003)
• "Sevmek Bir Eylemdir" (2005)
• "Ateşte Sınandık" (2006)
• "Çığlıklar Ülkesi" (2009)
• "Listen To The Banned" (2010)

Honor

• 3 March World Freemusic Award winner by Censorship of music- in London's Royal Institute of British Architects,25 March 2010

External links

• Ferhat Tunc Profile
• Ferhat Tunc Fan Clup