Muazzez Ersoy (b. 1958, İstanbul), is a Turkish classical and folk singer. Her real name is Hatice Yıldız Levent.
Hatice Yıldız Levent was born in the 9th of July 1958 in İstanbul. Her family originally comes from a black sea town in Kastamonu. She married while aged just 17 years old. However, this was short lived when she and her husband divorced after she gave birth to their first son one year later. She got a job at a cosmetics company and also pursued classical musical training at this time.
In 1990 she decided to become a professional singer and took the professional name “Muazzez Ersoy” after signing a record contract with Elenor Plak. Her first album called “Seven Olmazki” was released after one year. Her success kept increasing with “Herşeyim Sensin”, “Sizi Seviyorum” and “Sensizlik”. From 1995, she released a series of albums named “Nostalji” (turkish for “Nostalgia”). The second chapter of the “Nostalji” series called ‘Nostalji 4-5-6’ which was released in 1998 is among the most popular Turkish musical albums ever made with over 5 million in sales in Turkey.
Hatice has been given countless awards and accoloades, among them the honour of “National Singer” by the Turkish ministry of culture. She became a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations in 2006. |
