Sezen Cumhur Önal

Sezen Cumhur Önal was born on October 29, 1938 in Akseki district of Antalya. Fahrettin Önal, whose father was a district governor and who was also interested in painting, music and literature, was also a poet and novelist; One of his poems was even composed by Arif Sami Toker. Cinema screenwriter Safa Önal was also in his family.

Sezen started journalism in 1958, when she was only 20 years old, and worked as the Beyoğlu correspondent of Tercüman newspaper. In 1960, he started his radio career by producing and presenting the program "Between the Records" on Istanbul Provincial Radio; During the same period, he also directed another program called "Latin World".

The "Muzik Yelpazesi" program, which he prepared and presented for TRT since 1985, identified his name with the word "nostalgia" with its nostalgic song selections.

In the 1960s, together with Fecri Ebcioğlu, they laid the foundations of pop music, which was called "arrangement" or "light music with Turkish lyrics" at that time, by writing Turkish lyrics to foreign compositions. Önal wrote lyrics for more than 900 songs throughout his career and was engraved in the listeners' memories with his descriptions such as "chocolate colored" and "velvet voice".

He won the Turkish Language Association Honor Award for his mastery of Turkish; He was also awarded the title of State Artist and the "Knight of Arts" medals from the governments of France and Italy.

Önal, whose works are also featured internationally, wrote Turkish lyrics for Johnny Hallyday's songs "Ne Joues Pas Ce Jeu La" and "Anneau d'Or"; These songs were performed in Turkey as "For Her Green Eyes" and "Golden Ring". The rare 45 record containing these two songs was sold at an auction in France for 15,000 Euros.

Throughout his life, Önal left an important legacy to Turkish music culture with his songwriting and radio and television programming.

Productions in which he took part

• Politics Square (1994)
• Yahşi Cazibe (2010)
• Kral Türkiye Music Awards (1995) — Presenter
• Yeşilçam Sea (2003)

Production and imprint information was taken from TMDB.