McIntire Department of Music
Altai Kai: Throat Singers from Central Asia
Wednesday, October 11th, 3:30pm - Room 107 Old Cabell Hall — 9:00pm - Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar
On Wednesday, October 11th, the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar will be host to a truly unique international exchange. A group of 8 musicians and "throat singers" from the remote mountains of the Altai Republic in Central Asia will perform their remarkable singing style that has literally baffled music scholars across the globe.
The visitors are members of a well known performing group, Altai Kai, consisting of the finest musicians in their region performing the traditional "throat singing" of Central Asia. They also perform on handmade string musical instruments and native flutes.
The troupe has won numerous competitions and is famous in Asia and Eastern Europe. In 2005 they won a UNESCO international competition for world music. Their nation, the Altai Republic, has established a site devoted to their music on the World Wide Web, and a Czech site allows the downloading of their music (Google Altai Kai for a sampling of these sites and a dozen others created by fans of these musicians).
Throat singing has become a favorite world music style in recent years; knowledge of it has been spread by the cult movie "Genghis Blues," the touring of the Silk Road ensembles of Yo-Yo Ma, by troupes of Tibetan Monks, and by singers from Tuva, a region that borders Altai. The style is also found in Mongolia, but many of the finest singers have always been from the Altai Mountains.
Throat singing differs from other singing in that a single singer produces two or three distinct tones at the same time. This is accomplished by creating audible overtones. All tones produce overtones, resonate notes far up the sonic ladder from the fundamental tone. These usually cannot be heard, as the fundamental tone is louder. But the Altai learned to make the overtone as loud as the fundamental tone that produces it by altering the shape of resonate cavities in the mouth, larynx, and pharynx. It is an eerily beautiful effect, one of the greatest virtuosic skills in the music of the world.
The members of Altai Kai are devoted to the preservation of their ancient arts and have organized and conducted festivals. Their primary string instrument, the topshur, has been known for a thousand years. Their singing style and musical poems are handed down in families and clans.
There are some 200,000 people in Altai, living in villages scattered among mountains, lakes, and taiga. Their language is Altianan, an ancient Turkic tongue, and their closest neighbors are the Tuvans and Uigurs of middle Asia. Altai is one of the cradles of ancient civilization, and the Scythians left many monuments there. Other ancient people passed by, among them the Huns and the White Horde that galloped out of Asia to challenge the Romans.
It is a place of stunning beauty, with snowy mountains peaks that reach 13,500 feet, and crystal lakes and glaciers. It is far north, and has challenging weather; summer temperatures may reach 100 degrees, but may dive to 80 below zero in winter. It is bordered by Mongolia, Kazakhstan, China, and Tibet. The Altai are herders of sheep, and yaks, and are much devoted to horsemanship. Once part the Soviet empire, Altai is now a member of the Russian Federation.
Culture there has been influenced by missionary Buddhist monks who came from Tibet (and learned throat singing) and by missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church who came in Czarist times.
In addition to their performance in Charlottesville, Altai Kai are a headlining act at the 68th National Folk Festival, to be held in Richmond on the weekend of October 13-15.
Altay people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The
Uriankhai people were annexed by the
Oirat Zunghars in the 16th century. After the fall of the
Zunghar Khanate in the 18th century, the Uriankhai were subjugated by the
Qing Dynasty; and their one part, Altayans, was called by the Qing court as
Altan Nuur Uriyangkhai.
[5] They have had skills in
metalworking dating back to the
2nd millennium BC.
[6] The Altay came into contact with
Russians in the 18th century. In the
tsarist period, the Altay were known as
oirot or
oyrot (this name means
oirat and would later be carried on for the
Oyrot Autonomous Oblast). The Altay report that many of them became addicted to the Russians'
vodka, which they called "fire water".
[7]
The Altay were originally
nomadic, with a lifestyle based on hunting / trapping and pastoralism (mainly cattle, sheep, goats), but many of them settled as a result of Russian influence. In regard to religion, some of the Altay remain
Tengriists or
Shamanists, while others (in a trend beginning in the mid-19th century) have converted to the
Orthodox. (The Altai mission took shape under Saint
Makarii Glukharev, Apostle to the Altai.) In 1904, a religious movement called
Ak Jang or
Burkhanism arose, perhaps in response to Russian colonization.
[8]
Prior to 1917 the Altai were actually considered to be many different ethnic groups.
[9]
With the rise of the
1917 revolution, the Altay attempted to make their region a separate Burkhanist republic called Oryot, but their support for the
Mensheviks during the
Civil War led to the venture's collapse after the
Bolshevik victory and the rise of
Joseph Stalin. In the 1940s, the Altay were accused of being pro-
Japanese, and the word "oyrot" was declared
counterrevolutionary. By 1950,
Soviet industrialization policies brought Russian immigrants reducing the proportion of Altay from 50% to 20% of the population.
[10] Ethnic Altaians currently make up about 31% of the Altai Republic's population.
[11]"
Altai Republic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The indigenous Altai culture holds the lands of Altai to be sacred. The indigenous (Turkic) languages are focused on the stewardship of the lands. The Altai oral history is transmitted by throat-singers. The Altai culture was repressed during Soviet times, and has been rebounding since then. The clans of all ten regions gather in the village of Yelo for a biennial cultural celebration.
There is also a large contingent of "
Old Believers" who fled to Altai
when they split from the
Russian Orthodox Church about 200 years ago. They were taken in by the
Altai people, and are now integrated into the fabric of Altai culture.
The UNESCO World Heritage Site "Golden Mountains" protects the
Ukok Plateau, on which there are many standing stones and
kurgans. Although archeologists consider
kurgans to be burial sites, the indigenous people believe that they are highly refined magnetic instruments for directing the flow of cosmic energy into the Earth.[
citation needed] Thus, there is great local indignation about the excavation and removal of the
Siberian Ice Maiden, an extraordinary 2,500-year-old mummy that had been preserved in permafrost.
Gorno-Altaisk is the location of National Museum of Altai Republic, which houses the mummy "Altai Princess".
National Library of the Republic of Altai, the
National Theatre of the Republic of Altai and Municipal House of Culture
Regularly held national holiday Maslenitsa, Nowruz, Chaga - Bayram, received in February 2013 with the official status of the Republican celebration.
In 2013, the Altai Republic
participated in the
Türkvizyon Song Contest. The Altai Republic's entry was the song "Altayym Menin" performed by Artur Marlujokov. The Altai Republic received fifth place in the contest. The republic has also announced plans to compete in the 2014 Türkvizyon Song Contest."
The Pure Drop: Huun-Huur-Tu
photo by
Abbey Chamberlain
See Huun-Huur-Tu in:
Tuvan Throat Singing demonstration
Huun-Huur-Tu are a Tuvan throat singing group from — where else but Tuva! Throat singing is a form of singing where harmonic
overtones are created inside the mouth with the addition of some form of constriction of the larynx. Throat singing often mimics the sounds of nature and animals and is associated with the spiritual beliefs of
animism
. Tuva — a small Russian Republic on the Mongolian border, is the place most commonly associated with throat singing which is known as khöömei. Tuva is also the home of Huun-Huur-Tu.
Huun-Huur-Tu (Tuvan: xün xürtü) literally means ‘sun propeller’ — the vertical separation of light rays that often occurs just after sunrise or just before sunset. For the members of Huun-Huur-Tu, the refraction of light that produces these rays seems analogous to the "refraction" of sound that produces articulated harmonics in Tuvan throat-singing. The group are well known outside of Tuva and have toured America and recorded in London. They were originally called Kungurtuk and were formed in 1992 with several lineup changes since then. Their musical repertoire has expanded from traditional Tuvan folk songs to include contemporary Tuvan music. In 1999 their fourth album, Where Young Grass Grows even included non-Tuvan instruments including harp, tabla, Scottish smallpipe and synthesiser. The album also features two excerpts of recordings made of two members singing whilst riding horseback on the Tuvan grasslands.
@
Nihonjin1051 @
Indos @
sahaliyan please check out the music from post #496, I will be posting Central Asian music here in this thread from time to time. Best way to listen is to click on youtube logo at right bottom corner and watch video at youtube site.
