Program: Aynur

Aynur
Saturday, May 06, 2023
Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theatre

Aynur blends Kurdish and Western sounds, interpreting her traditional repertoire in a modern way. Her music is based on traditional Kurdish folk songs, many of them at least 300 years old. Her lyrics are about the life and suffering of Kurdish people, especially Kurdish women. This eventually caused mass controversy. Her album Keçe Kurdan was banned in 2005 by a court that alleged its lyrics had inspired separatism. The ban, however, was lifted the following year. Problems continued for her when audience members at the 2010 Istanbul Jazz Festival booed her for singing in Kurdish, causing her to leave the gig. Additionally, in 2022, Turkey’s Derince municipality in the northwestern Kocaeli province, controlled by Turkish President Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), banned Aynur’s concert after organizers deemed her concerts “inappropriate.” 

Simultaneously, Aynur’s activism has been widely praised internationally. In 2017, the singer and composer received a Berklee College of Music award in the category of Mediterranean Women in Action that recognized her faithfulness to traditional Kurdish music and her perseverance in overcoming challenges while following her artistic path, and in 2021, Aynur became the first Turkish artist to receive the WOMEX Artist Award, which was introduced in 1999 to acknowledge the social and political importance of musical excellence at a global level. 

Aynur has collaborated with several famous musicians such as the world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma. In 2013, Aynur released Hevra/Together under Sony Music Classical, which featured a fantastic collaboration with five-time Latin Grammy-winning Spanish producer, songwriter, and guitarist Javier Limón, known for his work with superstars like Buika, Yasmin Levy, and Mariza. On Hevra, Javier Limón and Aynur artfully synthesize flamenco and Kurdish music, continually crossing the limits. Hevra combines all the colors of East and West in a common musical expression.  

In 2020, Aynur released her latest album, Hedûr. The album withholds many first achievements in Aynur’s career, including her first experiences as an arranger, composer, and producer. Working with German Jazz pianist Franz Von Chossy, Aynur blends her Kurdish roots with jazz elements, carrying the ancient Kurdish music tradition into the present. Meaning “consoling oneself” or “taking solace in time” in Kurdish, the name emphasizes the intersection between her musical and spiritual journey. It acts as a reflection of the hardships and injustices faced by the people in her home country, Turkey, though it can also be understood as a lament for the state of humanity as a whole. She describes Hedûr as “a search for inner peace using the sounds of my mother tongue and the music of humanity.”