Yıldız İbrahimova

Yıldız İbrahimova (Bulgarian: Йълдъз Ибрахимова, Yaldaz Ibrahimova, Turkish: Yıldız İbrahimova) (b. 1952 in Silistra) is a Bulgarian singer of Turkish ancestry. She is one of the most popular jazz singers in Europe. Besides jazz she has also recorded Bulgarian, Turkish, Gypsy and Russian folk songs. Yildiz Ibrahimova has participated in tours in over 40 countries in Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and Africa. She married Ali Dinçer, a leading Turkish politician, also born in Bulgaria and former mayor of Ankara in 1993. Since then she has lived in Turkey. Her husband died on April 18, 2007.

She graduated with honours in Musical School "Lyubomir Pipkov” with major in opera singing, and later on, she graduated theory of music in the National Academy of Music.

Her debut as an artist was in 1975 with jazz quartet of Mario Stanchev. Subsequently she worked with musicians like Liubomir Denev, Ognian Videv, Vesselin Nikolov, Petar Petrov, Antoni Donchev and Boyan Vodenicharov.

During the co-called “communist revival process” in 1980s in Bulgaria, Yildiz was forced to change her name. Between 1985 and 1990 she made her musical performances as Susanna Erova. Under this name she performed with music formation "Jazz Line" and "Acoustic Version" for one season and she was a soloist with Theodosi Spasov in a group “White, green, red”.

The real challenge for her was the participation in festivals in Innsbruck (Austria), Muluz (France) and Varna, where Yildiz had voice solo programmes for 90 minutes without any musical accompaniment.

On other accessions her voice can be heard as accompaniment of Neshka Robeva’s "golden girls" show "Two worlds". Yildiz was involved in music for films “Akatamus”, “Mera spored Mera” and in many cartoons and documentaries.

Yildiz Ibrahimova does not limit their musical interests and searches in the field of jazz music. She take part in concerts of experimental music for the studio, perform pieces by John Cage, entered the territory of modern art music, Russian Gypsy romances mixed with classical, Balkan and Turkish folk music with jazz, children's songs from regions of Balkans and other parts of Europe. Her vocal range is about four octaves and she likes to play with her voice simulating various instruments from trumpet to violoncello. The great singer Yildiz was nominated and won a Turkish magazine prize for Jazz vocalist of the year.

Yildiz Ibrahimova is professor of jazz singing at METU (Middle East Technical University) in the Department of Music and Fine Arts and Music Faculty of Baskent University in Ankara, capital of Turkey.

In 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Yildiz was a special ambassador to the UN, with concert in which Bulgaria and Turkey presented the World Summit on Environment and Social Development.

Yildiz Ibrahimova has participated in tours in over 40 countries in Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and Africa, including the U.S., Mexico, Korea, Japan, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Turkey, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic and Slovakia Russia, Serbia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Croatia, Moldova, Armenia, Ukraine, Algeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Cyprus, Israel and others.

Her records include the following albums:

• (1979) Turkish Folk Songs LP, Balkanton,Sofia-Bulgaria
• (1981) Naissus Jazz-81-LP,Discos,Nish-Serbia
• (1987) Jazz and Something More LP,Balkanton
• (1987 The Girl with Lovely Eyes LP,Balkanton
• (1990) Illusory Eternity,LP,Balkanton
• (1991) Paris -Zagreb,with Antoine Herve qintet-CD-DEUX Z,Paris,France
• (1992) Illusory Eternıty-CD,Balkanton
• (1992) Hard way to freedom -with Anatoly Vapirov-AVA Records,Sofia, Bulgaria
• (1995) Ișığın Sesi (Voice of Rainbow)-Raks Music,Istanbul,Turkey
• (1997) Balkanatolia feat.Ivo Ppasov,Raks Music,Istanbul
• (1999) Marcanja e Romeskere Gilya(Songs of the Gypsy,Universal Music Turkey
• (2000) Marcanja-Songs of the Gypsy-Virginia Records-Universal Music Bulgaria
• (2003) Çocukça Șarkılar-Children Songs-Boyut-Istanbul-Turkey
• (2003) Pesni za Malki i Golemi-Children Songs-Virginia Records-Universal Bulgaria
• (2005) 30 Years on Stage-Virginia Records
• (2009) Back to my Love-Virginia Records-Bulgaria
• (2011) Balkanatolia 2-Annemden Rumeli Türküleri-Kalan-Turkey

• Interview with İbrahimova (Turkish)