nursing home. She transferred the royalties from performing rights to her music to the "Mehmetçik Foundation", a non-profit organization benefiting the Turkish Armed Forces. She died at the age of 94 on 3 July 2008 in the State Hospital of Kartal, where she had been treated for lung cancer. She was interred at Şıhlı Cemetery in Kurtköy, Pendik, following a religious funeral service held at Merkez Mosque in Maltepe. In 2015, poet and singer Onur Akay, whose poems she had set to music and whom she had regarded as her adoptive son, visited the cemetery for commemoration but could not find her grave because it had no gravestone. He insisted that the Mehmetçik Foundation address the situation and erected her gravestone within a short time. Legacy The former Boybey Street in Üsküdar, where Özdenses' birth house was located, was renamed Semahat Özdenses Street. The municipality of Kadıköy named the Cultural Center in her honor. A street in the Cami neighborhood of the Tuzla district in Istanbul Province, where she spent her last years, is also named after her. References External links Unutulmayan Bestecilerin Unutulmaz Eserleri (Unforgettable works of unforgettable composers) - Semahat Özdenses 2 / 18 @YouTube 1913 births 2008 deaths People from Üsküdar Musicians from Istanbul Women composers Musicians of Ottoman classical music Composers of Ottoman classical music 20th-century Turkish women singers 20th-century composers Turkish radio people