Zara

Who is Zara?

Zara is a popular Turkish folk singer and actress.

She was born in Üsküdar district of Istanbul in January 15, 1976. She graduated from the Sosyal Meskenler Primary School in Esatpaşa quarter. In 1991 and 1993, Zara was first among female Turkish folk musical soloists in a nation-wide high school level competition of music and folk dance organized by the newspaper Milliyet. She completed her higher education in the Department of Vocal Music of Istanbul Technical University State Conservatory.

In 1996, she passed the "qualified vocal artist" examination organized by TRT and started work as a contract Turkish folk singer. She acted and sang the role of Amber in the Yunus Emre Musical staged at Atatürk Cultural Center in 1997. In 1998, she published her album, Avuntu, the product of 15 months' work. In the same year, she played a lead role with Tarık Akan in her first feature film, Eylül Fırtınası, directed by Atıf Yılmaz.

Soon after, in 2000, Zara brought out her second album, Boyut featuring songs from old Turkish films. Video for the music on her album was distributed on VCD.