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Sebnem Ferah (born April 12, 1972 in Yalova, Turkey) is a Turkish singer and song-writer. She was the head vocalist of the all-female hard rock band Volvox until 1994, after which she went on to pursue an illustrious solo career. Her music style varies from acoustic rock to hard rock though her later albums have progressively incorporated more of the hard rock sound.
Life and career
Sebnem Ferah was born on 12 April 1972 in Yalova to Turkish immigrant
parents from Skopje of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. She
first took solfeggio and instrument lessons from her father who was
also a teacher. She grew up listening to her father's Rumelian folk
songs played with bağlama, mandolin and piano.
She got her first guitar when she was in the first year in boarding at
Bursa Namık Sözeri High School. She got acoustic lessons. During her
second year, she hired a studio with her friends and formed the group
Pegasus. The group had their first stage experience during a rock
festival in Bursa, in 1987. After a while, Pegasus disbanded. In 1988
with her four friends, Şebnem formed Volvox, which was named after the
microorganism named volvox they encountered in a biology lesson.
After graduating from high school, she attended Middle East Technical
University, studying economics, and moved to Ankara with her sister.
During this time, she met Özlem Tekin, who has now also become another
recognized Pop-Rock musician in Turkey, and Özlem joined Volvox. Volvox
could not do any practice for a year and a half because the members
experienced a hardship with coming together, with the other members
except Özlem and Şebnem living in Istanbul. In her second year at
university, Şebnem changed her mind about being an economist, dropped
out, and moved to Istanbul.
In Istanbul, she attended classes on English language and literature at
the Istanbul University. For two years she performed in various bars
with Volvox, until 1994, when Volvox disbanded.
An important change in Şebnem's musical career occurred when one of
Volvox's records was featured on Turkish Radio and Television
Corporation, the Turkish state television. She was noticed by Sezen
Aksu and Onno Tunç, both important figures in Turkish Music, and
subsequently became a vocalist for Sezen Aksu.
She released her first solo album Kadın in 1996, and has gone on to
release a total of five full studio albums, the last one being Can
Kırıkları, released in 2005, which also marked her return to the hard
rock genre after her previous experiments with soft rock. She is seen
by many as the leading rock artist in Turkish music and one of the most
admired singers in Turkey. In addition to composing the music and
writing the lyrics of every song in her albums, she occasionally sings
cover versions of work by artists of similar vocal qualities and style,
like Amy Lee and Skin, on stage.
On her third album, Perdeler, she collaborated with the Finnish cello rock band Apocalyptica.
Şebnem's current group consists of Buket Doran (bass guitar), Metin
Türkcan (electric guitar), Aykan İlkan (drums) and Ozan Tügen
(keyboard), who have been performing with her in studio and on stage
since her 3rd album, Perdeler.
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