Ajda Pekkan

Vocal Artist, Actor/Actress

Birth
12 February, 1946
Horoscope
Other Names
Ayşe Ajda Pekkan,Süperstar

Singer and actress. She was born on February 12th 1946 in Istanbul. Her full name is Ayşe Ajda Pekkan. His father Rıdvan Pekkan was a naval officer and his mother Nevin Dobruca was a housewife. Her childhood passed in Kocaeli / Gölcük due to his father's job. She enthused about being a singer when she was a student in Çamlıca Kız High School. She reached İlham Gencer, who was the owner of Çatı, which was a popular night club in 1962, with the support of his sister Semiramis and she performed there for a while. She won the first place prize in the acting competition opened by the Ses magazine in 1963. She starred in 47 movies until 1967. She starred in many more movies throughout her art life. She took role as a singer and sang in many movies. The song “Göz Göz Değdi Bana” she sang in the movie “Adanalı Tayfur” in 1963 was released a as record. She started to reinforce her fame as a singer with the support of Fecri Ebcioğlu in the 1970s.

Pekkan stepped into the world of music in the 1970s; the song “Hoş Gör Sen” of which the lyrics were written by Fikret Şeneş and arranged by Noray Demirci in 1975-76, the French song “Viens Dans Ma Vie” she sang in 1977 took part in movies. She is one of the people who gave the first products in the “arrangement” fashion what we can call as the first phase of the Turkish pop music. She both provided to expand into the world with a concert she gave in Europe’s famous music hall Olympia in 1973 and succeeded to receive the title “Superstar” from the happy minority of Turkey. After staying in France for around seven years, she returned to her country and worked with lyricists such as Ülkü Aker and Fikret Şeneş. In 1976, she gave concerts again in the Olympia music hall with the famous Algerian-born French singer Enrico Macias. She used her “Superstar” title in an album for the first time. Songs such as “Kim Ne Derse Desin”, “Hancı” took place this album. (1977).

In addition to her records that received attention in France in 1977-1978, her records of songs she sang in German, Japanese, Greek and French received reactions as well. In the meantime, she prepared in an album of French songs called “Pour Lui”. She released her “Süperstar II” album including the songs such as “Bambaşka Biri”, “Haykıracak Nefesim Olmasa Bile” in 1979. This work won several awards. Even though she didn’t receive any awards, she represented our country in the Eurovision song contest, with the song “Petr’oil” of which the lyrics were written by Şanar Yurdatapan and composed by Atilla Özdemiroğlu in 1980. After that, Ajda Pekkan expanded her range of music, she focused on the Jazz style and gave a concert with an American famous artist. Mazhar-Fuat-Özkan (MFÖ) joined her as the vocalists for this concert. 

Ajda Pekkan, who settled in the United States in 1980, returned to the arrangement trend that rose under her leadership in the 1970s, when pop music lost its attractiveness and left its place to alaturka and arabesque. She culminated with her album that she worked with Fikret Şeneş which included songs such as “Uykusuz Her Gece” and “Son Yolcu”. The singer had a breakout again with her song “O Benim Dünyam” in the album she produced with the group “Beş Yıl Önce On Yıl Sonra”, however she couldn’t make the splash she expected. Even though she prepared the “Süperstar 4” album, she announced that she left music due to her marriage. When her marriage ended, she released the “Ajda 90” album. 

She continued to release an album each year in the 1990s. In the same year, she achieved success with the song “A Me Amours” in the Yamaha Music Festival held in Tokyo in the same years. She worked with local composers mostly in 1991, 1993 and 1996. Her albums “Hoşgör Sen” and “Unutulmayanlar” were released in the mid-1990s. She sang the song “Sev Dünyayı” with her artist friends and “Sensiz Yıllarda” as solo with the arrangement of  Turhan Yükseler in the “Sevgiyle 93” album, prepared with the participation of various artists in 1993. She sang the song “Kimler Geldi Kimler Geçti” again with the new arrangement of Selçuk Başar in the “Altın Yıllar Altın Şarkılar” album in 1995. She was honored as the State Artist by the Ministry of Culture in the 35th year of her professional art life (1998).

Ajda Pekkan, once again met with audience with “The Best of Ajda” album in 1998.  The continuation of this album, “Diva” was released in 2000. Two new songs “Mutlu Bütün Şarkılar” and “Aşka İnanma” and Ajda Pekkan’s interpretation of some old songs of her sister Semiramis Pekkan such as “Dert Ortağım Benim” and “Bu Ne Biçim Hayat” took place in this album. The song “Bir Günah Gibi” that was in this album, which achieved great success, took place in the world-famous DJ Claude Challe's "Buddha Bar" series. “Prestige de la Turquie avec Ajda Pekkan”, a short video was requested to be made by the Ministry of Culture for Pekkan, who was performing with the world-famous artists in the Monte Carlo Sporting d'Ete Music Hall in Monaco in 2000. After her songs that were used as the background music in many movies in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the voice of Ajda Pekkan took place with the song “Bambaşka Biri” in the “Cahil Periler” movie directed by Ferzan Özpetek and with the song “Bir Günah Gibi” in a soap opera broadcasted in Mexico. 

Ajda Pekkan, who thought that she was unable to express herself by singing as much as she desired and who wanted to taste her adventure of the silver screen in the 1960s again, shared the leading roles with the famous actor Halil Ergün in the movie “Şöhret Sandalı”in 2002. Even though Ajda Pekkan, who met with her fans with a single “Sen İste” after a three-year-long break in the summer of 2003, attempted to produce a new album, but her idea didn’t come true. Ajda Pekkan started to make a favorite TV show titled as “Superstar Show” in Kanal D in 2005. She met the audience with the “Cool Kadın” album in 2006 and she was awarded by the Golden Record by MÜYAP due to the success she showed. She held a series of concerts with the title “Ajda Disco’da” in 2007. She released her new album “Aynen Öyle” in 2008 and a single track where she interpreted the song “Resim”, a composition of Serdar Ortaç in 2009. 

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