Fedon

Fedon — Biography

Fedon Kalyoncu was born on 19 August 1946 in Istanbul, the son of a Greek father and an Armenian mother; his uncle was the well-known Yeşilçam film actor Nubar Terziyan, and his grandfather Kleanti Kalyoncu died fighting at Gallipoli.

He attended the Zografeion Greek high school in Istanbul, then spent roughly a decade, from 1962 to 1972, working various jobs in the film industry before opening the Zorba Taverna in 1987. His singing career took off in 1991 with the album Senin İçin, and he became the first performer to sing in Greek on state broadcaster TRT, building a repertoire in both Greek and Turkish rooted in the rebetiko tradition.

He received the Abdi İpekçi Peace and Friendship Award in 2000. He and his wife, Eda Kalyoncu, have two children, a daughter named Natali and a son named Theo, and he continues performing on stage into his eighties.