SIRMA Shares New November 2016 Party Mixtape
Born in Istanbul and currently living in New York City, SIRMA is an artist/songwriter/producer who blends Alternative Pop with Electronica.
After studying classical and jazz music as a child in Turkey, SIRMA decided to continue her music career in the United States, when she was awarded the prestigious Arif Mardin Music Fellowship to attend an intensive summer program at Berklee College of Music in 2007.
Upon returning to Istanbul to complete her high school education, she placed third in one of Turkey’s most respected jazz vocal competitions as the youngest entrant. The media recognition catapulted her into the national spotlight, and she was selected to represent Turkey on the World Cup theme of 2010, “Oh Africa,” on which she collaborated with Akon, Keri Hilson and the Soweto Gospel Choir.
SIRMA returned to Boston to study at Berklee full-time in 2009 as a merit-based scholarship student, majoring in Contemporary Writing & Production. During her time at Berklee, SIRMA joined the experimental rock band Helicopria, with which she toured internationally, opening for Mando Diao at a 17,000 capacity venue in Turkey in addition to performing on CNN Türk and Turkey’s most popular late night talk show for an estimated audience of 25 million.
SIRMA graduated from Berklee in 2013 and moved to NYC, where she worked on several international commercial music projects as a singer and gained experience as a sound engineer while working at Terminus Recording Studios. That same year, Dubstep producer Illenium came across SIRMA’s early demos on Soundcloud and proposed a collaboration, which was later released as the first single from Illenium’s debut Risen EP, “Drop Our Hearts”. The track, featuring SIRMA’s vocals, quickly rose to #1 on the Dubstep charts.
A year later, upon popular demand, Illenium, this time additionally teaming up with Said The Sky, proposed to make “Drop Our Hearts (Part II)”, which SIRMA co-wrote and lent her vocals to. “Drop Our Hearts (Part II)” premiered on EDM.com and rose to #1 on the Dubstep charts within the first week of its release.
After several encounters with a wide range of genres, SIRMA spent the following two years working on developing her own sound, by writing, recording and producing at her home studio in Brooklyn. The first product of this seclusion and self-discovery is titled “To Love” EP, which will be released in early 2017.