Uyghur Dutar & Folk Singing
About once a month, an otherwise unremarkable strip mall in Fairfax turns into a bustling bazaar where you can buy lamb kabobs straight off the fire, delicious samsa (meat pies), flatbread, and homemade liángpí (“cold skin” noodles).
“The atmosphere is: you’re in the Uyghur community, you’re in a little homeland,” explained Ajinur Setiwaldi, a resident of Arlington.
This is Ana Care & Education Uyghur School, the cultural heart of Northern Virginia’s community of more than 5,000 Uyghurs. These monthly bazaars are a recent addition to its language, dance, and music classes. (On June 7, Ana Care hosted its first annual Silk Road Fair.)
Ajinur joined the rest of her Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship team in the music room. Hayrunisa Yenilmes is teaching Uyghur folk singing to Ajinur and her fellow apprentice Subhinur Elemin. Amir Kilich, Hayrunisa’s husband, is teaching them how to play dutar, a two-stringed, long-neck lute essential to traditional Uyghur music.
At its core, their project is one of cultural resistance: By playing traditional Uyghur music, they maintain the culture of their homeland during a time of persecution. Through music, they are sharing the Uyghur story with Virginians.
“It’s not only music we are listening to,” Subhinur said. “We’re listening to culture. We’re listening to history.”
Uyghurs are a majority Muslim, Central Asian people. When the Chinese Community Party established the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the state occupied East Turkestan, the Uyghur homeland, and renamed it Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang means “New Frontier”).
Then, China declared Uyghurs an ethnic minority. With mass transfers of Han Chinese into the region across the decades, Uyghurs became a minoritized people in their own homeland. China’s efforts to repress and erase Uyghur culture began before annexation and have drastically escalated since late 2016. Over one million Uyghurs are detained and forced to work in Xinjiang or at factories across China, including those producing goods for export to the U.S.
“We all have family members that have spent time in those camps,” Ajinur said. “They also target the cultural influencers — the musicians, historians, poets, professors, medical doctors, lawyers, anyone who had an influence within their community.”
Hayrunisa and Amir both fled Xinjiang for Turkey in 2016. They did not know each other at the time, but their commitment to perform traditional Uyghur music brought them together. When Abdurehim Heyit, a master dutar composer and Hayrunisa’s singing teacher was detained in 2017, Hayrunisa sought someone to play dutar so she could perform Heyit’s songs. Acquaintances led her to Amir, and it felt like destiny.
One of the first songs they worked on together was “Uchrashqanda (The Meeting).” It is based on a poem by Abdurehim Ötkur, written during Chinese repression in 1947, and in it, a man mourns for his homeland that has come to him in the vision of a beautiful woman.
“It turned out that my husband also wanted to bring Uyghur culture back to the forefront,” Hayrunisa said. “So we met, and during the process of practicing several pieces of music, he proposed marriage.” The two began to perform together and gained attention in Turkey.
Hayrunisa grew up in the Sufi tradition of devotional recitations of the Quran and ancient Central Asian poetry. “My mother and father had gatherings several days a week to recite qasidas (odes),” she said. “Since I was a baby, I would fall asleep at such gatherings. By growing up sitting with them, my ears became very refined.”
By age nine, Hayrunisa was formally invited to join in. When she was 15, Heyit heard her sing. He was so impressed, he offered to apprentice her and they worked together for about 5 years.
“Now, for me, the purpose of singing is to make both myself and the entire Uyghur people heard,” Hayrunisa said.
The musicians gathered at the monthly bazaar held at the Uyghur Cultural Center to have a lesson in February 2025. Jacob Kashgary Noor grills lamb kebobs outside the bazaar.
Amir is a professional musician. He attended the Xinjiang Arts Institute and began studying music when he was 12. He played guitar for a band in Beijing for seven years and went on to produce music that blended Uyghur sounds with European influences.
Facing the destruction of his culture, and moving through grief some 3,000 miles away in Turkey, Amir committed to playing traditional Uyghur music. Since 2017, he has composed 13 original pieces for his people’s folk instruments, including the dutar, tambur, and satar.
“Music is a tool for me to express my inner feelings and inner world,” Amir said.
In the Ana Care music room, he played “Give Me Back My Homeland,” one of his recent compositions. Before he started, he told us, “It’s been ten years since I buried my mother.” We could feel the emotion he channeled through his dutar.
Uyghur music has an ancient history with distinct regional variations that developed in the region’s oasis towns. Kashgar, where Kheyrunnisa was born, is a 2000-year-old city and was once a hub for the Silk Road. As with its music, Uyghur textiles developed distinct, micro-regional styles. Amir and Hayrunisa wore a traditional doppa (hat) and silk ikat for our visit. Uyghurs come together in a shared sense of pride for their traditional music through the muqam, a 12-part canonical repertoire of song and dance that tells the history of the homeland.
Apprentices Subhinur and Ajinur are new to playing music, but the two have served their community in other ways for years. Subhinur, who is studying to be a health and wellness coach, also works as a translator and legal assistant. Ajinur, an attorney, works in human rights and international development and provides pro-bono immigration support for members of the Uyghur community. Both also volunteer for the Tarim Network, a transnational Uyghur community that seeks to connect and empower young Uyghurs.
“With our trauma and the pressure of having to maintain your livelihood, there’s not a lot of positive platforms to just exist as a Uyghur,” Ajinur said.
Their apprenticeship began with Amir teaching them how to position their hands and hold the dutar properly. It has a very long neck, with 15 frets that reach past your wrist with your arm fully extended. Ajinur bought two dutars on two separate trips to Central Asia and safely brought them carry on, cradling them in her seat.
After mastering practice technique exercises, Subhinur and Ajinur are moving on to learn how to play and sing simple songs. Their mentors know they are committed.
“Not everyone has to be an activist demonstrating or lobbying in Congress,” Ajinur said. “You can do a lot by sharing music. I’m really glad that we are a part of this creative resistance.”
Save the Date!
Amir Kilich and Hayrunisa Yenilmes will perform at the Reston Multicultural Festival on Saturday, September 20, 2025.
