Kurds are by now a part of the American political news, but their place in America's cultural news is limited and few Kurdish singers are known there. Last month, music lovers in New York were introduced to Aynur Dogan, a Kurdish Alevi music diva from Turkey — and one of Al-Monitor’s list of 50 people shaping the culture of the Middle East — who completed her Sept. 14-30 US-Canada tour with a concert in New York.

The tour included various US cities in California, Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico and Wisconsin, and in Ontario, Canada. Dogan, known as simply “Aynur” to her fans, was accompanied by a group of musicians from Syria and Azerbaijan, as well as a German-born Turk. During and after each of her concerts, fans would post short clips, photos and praise on different social media platforms expressing how impressed they are with the Kurdish tunes.

“It was a crucial tour that brought Aynur and her trio to diverse American audiences, including college students and art circles. Kurdish music, specifically Anatolian and Alawite music, reached a global audience through Dogan’s emotion-laden voice,” Mutlu Civiroglu, a Washington based Kurdish affairs analyst, told Al-Monitor at Aynur’s New York concert. Citing “Rewend” (Nomad) as his favorite song, Civiroglu pointed out that fans waited in the cold just to get a glimpse of Dogan.

Another fan who attended the concert was 78-year-old who gave her name only as Hatice from Diyarbakir, who has been in self-imposed exile in the United States for the last 58 years. She said, “Today, for the first time in the United States, I felt my roots. The scent of the home I was born in, the colors of the town [Diyarbakir] I grew up in all came back to me. I cried with happiness. A woman’s voice singing our stories in our language 20 minutes away from my house.”