Born Aynur Doğan in 1975 in Çemisgezek, in the province of Dersim in Turkey, she attended the ASM Music School in Istanbul, where she studied singing with Begüm Erdem and Aşkın Metiner. In 2002, her first album, Seyir, was released. Besides taking part in concerts and albums of artists and groups such as Metin-Kemal Kahraman, Mikail Aslan, Grup Yorum, Orient Expressions, Lütfü Gültekin and Anjelika Akbar, she has also performed the vocals for television and cinema. She has performed at home and abroad in Kurdish but also in Turkish. Her album Keça Kurdan (Kurdish Girl) was released by Kalan Music in 2004. The product of nearly a year’s effort, with arrangements by such master musicians as Aykut Gürel, Serdar Ateşer, Kemal Sahir Gürel and Burhan Bayar, Aynur’s Keçe Kurdan album presented a combination of Kurdish and Turkish folk songs, as well as new compositions. Accompanied by a host of fine musicians, the album was notable for its original arrangements. With her broad vocal range, Aynur performs both folk songs and improvisations, and her album has proved capable of deepiy moving audiences. Rising quickly to the top of Kurdish music albums, Keça Kurdan has received a significant amount of attention, both in the Turkish and World press. The English magazine Folk Roots (fRoots) featured the albüm on the cover of their November 2004 issue. The article “A Kurd on the Way” gave an account of Aynur’s success and information on her past. Comparing her to Turkey’s Sezen Aksu and Greece’s Ελευθερία Αρβανιτάκη, it declared Aynur a major star for all Kurds. Aynur’s photo was also on the cover of a suppliement in the The Times on 21st March 2005 - issue: “The Cultural Wealth of Turkey”. Attaining great success through the song she sang in Kurdish in Yavuz Turgul’s film Gönül Yarası, Aynur became the first to sing a Kurdish song live in a film shot in Turkey. She was also featured in Fatih Akın’s documentary film Istanbul Hatırası / Crossing the Bridge. In May 2005, Aynur received great interest when she performed in various cities of Holland with the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble, considered the finest wind ensemble in the country. Later, she gave three concerts in the “Festival of Turkey” held in Spain in July 2005, alongside such artists as Sezen Aksu, Erkan Oğur, Kardeş Türküler, Mercan Dede and Burhan Öçal. Along with these developments, fifteen months after its release, the Sixth Criminal Court of Diyarbakır issued a court decision to have the Keçe Kurdan album removed from the shelves, on the pretext that the song of the same name “encouaged women to go up into the mountains and engage in separatism”. The decision was sent to the province governorship. That decision was annulled in September 2005. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.