İbrahim Özgür (1910 – 11 February 1959) was a Turkish

tango Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries as the result of a combina ...

composer and singer.

Early life

Özgür was born into a musical family in Ayazpasa,

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

. Özgür learned

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

and

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

at the Military Academy in

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

when he was 16.

Career

After graduation Özgür returned to Istanbul and formed his own orchestra. In 1931 Özgür embarked on a concert tour for seven years and performed in many East Asia countries such as

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. Afterwards, Özgür went back to Turkey and opened a nightclub called “Ates Boceklen”, which means “Glow-worm” in English. Later in 1938, Özgür made his first recording. He wrote many famous tangos full of nostalgia. His best-known tango, “Mavi Kelebek”, was inspired by an Indian princess whom he met.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ozgur, Ibrahim 1910 births 1959 deaths Turkish male dancers 20th-century Turkish male singers Tango dancers