Meriç Yurdatapan

Meriç Yurdatapan — Biography

Meriç Yurdatapan (born 1972, Istanbul) is a Turkish-born jazz singer based in Germany. She moved to Germany at 18 to study architecture, but after completing her intermediate diploma she turned to classical vocal training at the Baden Conservatory and went on to earn a degree in voice at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. Before that shift, she had already won first prize at the Hessian State Music Council's "Jugend jazzt" competition.

Known for a style shaped by both Middle Eastern and European musical traditions, Yurdatapan has performed with various duos and ensembles and has appeared as a singer in a musical as well as in the German television series "Ein Fall für Zwei." Her 2007 album "Oriental Jazz – Live in Mainz" was her first commercially distributed release and brought her wider recognition in Germany, after having self-distributed her earlier recordings.