Tuvan Throat Singing - Alash Ensemble

Sunday, April 15

Admission: TBA (Passport holders admitted free)

Community School of Music and Arts

Presented by Planetary Productions...

Alash performs the amazing sounds of Tuvan music in the tradition of Huun Huur Tu, while expanding into new sonic territory. They have performed in the US and throughout Russian and Europe, adding new musical insights to the traditional "musical treasures" of Tuva. Their music is firmly grounded in cultural and spiritual traditions of Tuva, a remote Russian Republic on the Siberian-Mongolian border, but it incorporates newer sounds. The groups is among the first of a generation of Tuvan musicians who have matured in the musically fertile and adventurous post-communist period in Tuva.

Throat singing, also called Xoomei, is an unusual use of the voice as an instrument with some similarities to overtone singing. By manipulating the vocal chords, Xoomei singers can produce two distinct tones at the same time. In traditional Tuvan music, the singers often use their voices and instruments to create sounds of their world - bird whistles, bubling steams, cantering horses, and howling wolves - producing a musical portrait of teh remote, forested taiga and windswept steppes.

The ensembles includes:

• Kongar-ool Ondar, artistic director (featured in Genghis Blues)
• Bady-Dorzhu Ondar; vocals, igil, doshpuluur
• Ayan-ool Sam; guitar, vocals, doshpuluur, chanzy, igil
• Mai-ool Sedip; vocals, byzaanchy, limpi
• Ayan Shirizhik; vocals, murgu, shoor, kenggirge, xapchyk, dunggur
• Sergei Sotpa; instrument-master, vocals, igil, shoor, limpi, xomus