Ohannes Tunçboyacıyan,[1] better known as Onno Tunç (20 December 1948 – 14 January 1996), was a leading Turkish musician of Armenian descent, working mainly as a composer, arranger and a music producer.
Born in a financially limited family, he could not afford a musical instrument although they fascinated him, until Anush ("Sweet" in Armenian), the mother of his friend Arman bought her son a guitar, and one for Onno too.
In the following years, he increased his musical experience by working with the orchestras of Durul Gence and Süheyl Denizci.
At that time, he contributed to the albums of many names including Özdemir Erdoğan, Nilüfer, Bülent Ortaçgil, Gülden Karaböcek, Ajda Pekkan, Nükhet Duru and Gökben.
In the 90's, he was the music director of the albums by Aşkın Nur Yengi, Bülent Ortaçgil, Harun Kolçak, Nilüfer, Zerrin Özer, Zuhal Olcay and Ayşegül Aldinç.
The songs composed or arranged by Tunç also took place in the albums of Asya, Yeşim Salkım, Bendeniz, Emel Müftüoğlu and Rüya Ersavcı.
A very close friend of Turkish singer Sezen Aksu, he co-wrote and composed many of the songs she performed throughout her career, as well as arranging all of her albums.
He collaborated with Hulki Aktunç and Dağhan Baydur on the Turkish entry Sevince at the Eurovision Song Contest 1978, which was performed by Nilüfer and Nazar.
The A-1 track from the album called Hadi Bakalım (Come On Now) was a hit in Turkey and Europe, and was published as a single in Germany.
Onno Tunç died on 14 January 1996, when his private plane he was piloting crashed in bad weather on a mountain at Tazdağ near Selimiye village of Armutlu, Yalova on his journey from Bursa to Istanbul.
He was survived by two daughters Selin and Ayda from his first wife, Canan Ateş who was the first Turkish female athlete to swim a marathon.