Muazzez Ersoy (born Hatice Yıldız Levent, August 9, 1958 in Istanbul, Turkey), is a Turkish classical and folk singer.
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Hatice Yıldız Levent was born on August 9, 1958 in Istanbul to Yaşar and Fatma Levent. Her family originally comes from a Black Sea town in Kastamonu. His father Yaşar was a taxi driver. She married in 1975, when she was just 17 years old. However, this was short lived when she and her husband divorced after she gave birth to their first son. 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. Muazzez Abacı and Bülent Ersoy are two of the leading singers of modern Turkish classical music. Her first album called 'Seven Olmaz ki' was released after one year. Her success kept increasing with her later albums 'Herşeyim Sensin', 'Sizi Seviyorum' and 'Sensizlik'. In 1995, she released a series of albums named 'Nostalji' (Turkish for "Nostalgia"). The second chapter of the 'Nostalji' series, called 'Nostalji 4-5-6', was released in 1998, and is among the most popular Turkish musical albums ever made with over 5 million sales in Turkey.
Ersoy has been given countless awards and accoloades, among them the honour of "National Artist" by the Turkish ministry of culture.[1] She became a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations in 2006.[2]