Nuray Hafiftaş

Nuray Hafiftaş — Biography

Nuray Hafiftaş (2 November 1962 – 14 February 2018) was a Turkish folk singer and composer, widely regarded as one of the most refined interpreters of the Anatolian türkü repertoire of her generation. She was born in the district of Çıldır, in the north-eastern province of Ardahan, into a family of Karapapak (Terekeme) descent with Azerbaijani Turkic roots; some sources give her year of birth as 1964. She later settled in Istanbul, where she studied at Istanbul Technical University.

Hafiftaş built her reputation on an unadorned, emotionally restrained delivery of folk songs drawn largely from eastern Anatolian and Caucasian traditions, and she also composed and arranged material of her own. The Turkish press often called her the "Ahu Gözlü" — the doe-eyed voice — of Turkish folk music, and for decades she was a familiar presence on television programmes and concert stages.

In November 2017 she publicly disclosed that she had been undergoing treatment for cancer, saying she had until then hidden the illness from everyone around her. She died in Istanbul on 14 February 2018 and was buried the following day. Anniversaries of her death continue to be marked by Turkish broadcasters and newspapers.