Ceylan Ertem

Ceylan Ertem (born 26 December 1980, Adapazarı, Sakarya), Turkish song writer and singer.

Ceylan Ertem started her music career by joining the Akhisar Municipality’s children choir. She learned how to play piano in 1995 back in her hometown. In 1999, she moved to Istanbul to continue with her musical education. In Istanbul, she attended Mujdat Gezen Art Academy and studied Western Music for 2 years.

In 2000, she and Tuncay Korkmaz started the band Anima. Anima released their first and only album "Animasal" in 2006. However, that album wasn’t a success after all. In 2008, she had started the project “SubidaP” which was on the radio for 26 weeks.

In 2008, she recorded with Philipp Gropper and Wanja Slavin in Berlin for the project “Octophone”. Later, she had many concerts in Berlin as well. She worked with other European bands such as “United Fools” of France and “Barana” of Netherlands.

In 2010, she released her first solo album. Album was called “Soluk”. She recorded the whole album with 40 musicians. She continued with her solo career with “Ütopyalar Güzeldir” in 2012, “Amansız Gücenik” in 2014, and cover album “YUH!” in 2015. In 2016, she was invited to work on the project which is attributed to Zülfü Livaneli, which she covered “Kiz Cocugu”. She released her 4th studio album "Yine de Amin" in February 2017.

She is also known for her songs which have political content. In her song “Son Bakış”, she calls up the names of Turkish political figures such as Nâzım Hikmet and Berkin Elvan who are aggrieved. She even faced charges because of content of the song. She was quoted: “I only stand for peace. If that is a crime, aren’t we all criminals?”