Tolga was born in Istanbul in 1977 but grew up on a small island in the north of Holland. When he was eight years old he started studying classical guitar, and some years later he switched to electric guitar, and soon after started playing gigs with local rock bands. At age eighteen he moved to Amsterdam where he discovered Jazz and Django Reinhardt's Gipsy Jazz. He took lessons from time to time, but is mainly self-taught.

His first personal album 'Bohemia' (1999), was a big success, opening doors to many national and international festivals. Since then, he has played at some of the most prestigious festivals like the Montreux Jazz festival in Switzerland, and did numerous of concerts for radio and television. He got many invitations to play in Italy, and in the spring of 2005, he decided to move there all together.

In the meantime he kept developing his music, and has just finished his ninth album as a bandleader 'Gelibolu'. On this CD, he is experimenting with a new instrument built specially for him by Dutch luthier Ger Boonstra; an acoustic double neck guitar; one of the necks is fretless. Partly thanks to this special instrument, the sound of Tolga's music nowadays is often oriental-flavoured. His music is often used by film and documentary makers, radio and television. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.