MusicTibet.com
News :: 2007
Concert displays art of Tibetan musicians
Techung and friends opening for the Dalai Lama at Sentannial Park, Atlanta on 22 October 2007. Photo by Bryan Meltz
EMORY UNIVERSITY, USA, 25 October 2007 — The sounds were foreign but the message was universal, as three Tibetan artistes sang of freedom and a longing for their homeland on Friday evening. About 100 people gathered in the Michael C. Carlos Museum Reception Hall to hear the traditional Tibetan music performed in honour of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's visit to Emory last weekend.
The concert emphasized lay Tibetan music, not the monastic pieces performed at the Sacred Music, Sacred Dance show on Saturday. Still, the two forms of music definitely overlapped: The first number, which featured call-and-response style vocals and a traditional masked dancer, was taken from the opening of a Tibetan opera and symbolically purifies and blesses the stage.
Techung, the featured artiste, explained that the piece was a favourite of the Dalai Lama's. The artistes then launched into two sets of contemporary Tibetan music, including some of Techung's original compositions.
The pieces emphasized handheld drums and cymbals and string instruments, like one similar to the Indian sitar. The Tibetans, like most Eastern musicians, do not use the solfege scale and so the melodies sounded very different from those in the Western classical repertoire.
Still, there were some similarities between the two traditions. In his second number, a song about the sun and moon and the reincarnation process, Techung created a swing-like feel through his relaxed strumming. Later in the programme, he picked up a Western guitar and played an original composition in English and Tibetan about his desire to return home to Tibet. "Let's go," he sang in English. "Let's go home, to our native land." A second musician accompanied him on electric bass.
Techung and the two other Tibetan musicians who performed were all trained at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA), one of the first institutions established by the Dalai Lama after the Tibetans were exiled by the Chinese in 1959.
In her introduction to the programme, Tara Doyle, director of the Tibetan studies programme, explained that the Dalai Lama wanted a rich arts programme to both preserve the Tibetan culture and offer solace to a people exiled from their homeland.
"The people needed something to lift their spirits," she said.
All TIPA artistes are trained in voice, dance and a full complement of traditional Tibetan instruments. Techung and fellow performers Tenzin Kalsang and Sonam Lhamo demonstrated the range of their skills, alternately singing, dancing and trading instruments among themselves.
Music is a crucial tool in preserving the Tibetan community in exile, Techung said after the performance.
He explained that he left TIPA in Dharmshala, India to share Tibetan music with people across the diaspora, and he tries to impart a message of peace and hope to them through the music.
"Music is so insignificant, but at the same time, it brings the community together," he said.
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