NEZİH ÜNEN
Nezih Ünen is an internationally award-winning multidisciplinary artist working across music, film, and writing. After studying Mechanical Engineering at Boğaziçi University, he chose to pursue a career in the arts.
He began his musical education under the guidance of Timur Selçuk, a leading representative of both Turkish and Western classical music traditions. Building on this foundation through studies in harmony, form, and orchestration, he further expanded his musical knowledge with jazz theory courses from Berklee College of Music. He later attended UCLA courses in Film Music and Record Production, and also served as a university lecturer for three years.
MUSIC
Ünen's professional music career began with the score for Yarın Artık Bugündür, a television series written by renowned poet and novelist Attilâ İlhan, and continued with the album Planet, featuring fretless guitar by Erkan Oğurand bass guitar by Levent Yüksel. Throughout his career, he has been recognized as one of the pioneers of cultural synthesis in contemporary Turkish music. He also became a leading figure in the fields of advertising jingles and radio/TV branding; his jingle for Süper FM became one of the iconic audio signatures of its era. His album Yasak Elma, featuring the song "Haremde Dans" based on the same melody, was regarded as one of the period's most distinctive productions.
From his score for the cult film Berlin in Berlin to the iconic 1990s hit "Çingene Yüreğim", Ünen's work has consistently bridged the gap between avant-garde expression and popular culture. The music video for "Karnaval," the title track of his album of the same name, received the Kral TV Award for Best Music Video.
As co-producer of the television program Sing Your Song, Ünen contributed to the careers of major Turkish artists including maNga and Emre Aydın. He also served as music director for Özcan Deniz's albums Ses ve Ayrılık and Hediye, helping shape a new musical direction for the artist.
CINEMA & TV
In cinema, Ünen achieved international recognition with Lost Songs of Anatolia, a musical documentary widely regarded as the first work of its kind and celebrated for its contemporary cinematic interpretation of Turkey's musical heritage. The film received the Best Musical Documentary Award at the International Santa Rosa Film Festival. A song featured in the project, "Eşrefoğlu Al Haberi," was later included in the soundtrack of the Oscar-nominated and Cannes-winningfilm Mustang.
Ünen subsequently wrote and directed his first narrative feature film, Blue Lodge, and also produced and hosted Those Songs with Nezih Ünen, a music-oriented talk show broadcast on TRT Music, the music channel of Turkey's national public broadcaster.
LITERATURE
Writing the lyrics as well as the compositions for almost all of his songs, Ünen expanded into screenwriting and literature alongside his filmmaking career. During his time in the United States, he wrote Remaking Martin, a dramatic science-fiction screenplay that became a quarterfinalist in the prestigious CineStory Foundation Screenwriting Competition in Los Angeles. He later adapted the same work into a novel and published it internationally
LATEST
After returning to Turkey from the U.S. during the pandemic, Ünen released a series of new songs, including "Gece Yolcusu", "Geriye Bakmadan", "Kumdan Kaleler", and "Beyoğlu". He continues to create new works and is currently developing a musical project.