About

Ahmet Tuzlu was born on 30 July 1980 in Tuz Khurmatu, south of Kirkuk, Iraq, into a family of artists: his father, Hamit Tuzlu, is a well-known Kirkuk singer, and his uncle, Ali Marifoğlu, is a leading name in Iraqi Turkmen literature. He finished high school in Tuz Khurmatu. With his father's and uncle's guidance he absorbed Turkmen oral literature.

To build on a musical journey that began at home, he came to Türkiye to study. He completed his bachelor's degree in Music (Opera) at the Bilkent University Faculty of Music and Performing Arts. During his master's at the Hacettepe University Institute of Fine Arts, Department of Opera (Voice), he performed Verdi's La Traviata in full before a jury, and in 2019 he defended his thesis on the formation of Turkish opera and an analysis of Ahmet Adnan Saygun's opera Özsoy.

In 2015 he joined the Turkish Folk Music Choir of TRT Ankara Radio and, the same year, its staff of folk music vocalists. He has given many concerts in Türkiye and abroad representing the Iraqi Turks, appeared on television and been a guest at local and national festivals. He still works at TRT. He is married and the father of a daughter.

• An excerpt from La Traviata with the Turkish Land Forces Harmony Band (conductor Col. Halil Aşık) and the Opera Department choir of the Ankara University State Conservatory (conductor Dilruba Amanullaeva).
• A concert for veterans at the Turkish Armed Forces Rehabilitation Centre in Ankara.
• Excerpts at Bilkent University from Tosca, La Traviata, La Bohème, Faust, Turandot, L'elisir d'amore, Madama Butterfly, Franz Lehár operettas, and Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio and The Magic Flute.
• Ahmet Adnan Saygun, Yunus Emre Oratorio.
• Lieder by Schumann, Schubert and Hugo Wolf.
• Represented the Iraqi Turks with Kirkuk folk songs at TRT's 4th and 5th International Türkçe Vizyon Festival in Denizli.
• Turkvision Song Contest: represented the Iraqi Turks in Eskişehir (2013) and Tatarstan (2014); jury member in 2020.
• TRT's Sıra Sende Türkiye contest (2015).