A Rare Treat From Asia On LCC Stage
Wednesday - January 21, 2009
Making a special one-night appearance at Leeward Community College Theatre, straight from the heart of Asia comes the first and foremost all-female Tuvan throat-singing and folk music ensemble Tyva Kyzy.
The group has five women during tours, allowing them to showcase the five main styles of Tuvan, the multiple-tone harmonic singing better known as khoomei. Members of Tyva Kyzy ("Daughters of Tuva") also have mastered traditional folk instruments such as the igil (a horse-headed fiddle), cha-khomus (large-mouth harp made from a hunting bow and arrow) and chadagan (resembling a hammered dulcimer).
Declared by MusicNews as "throat-singing at its stupefying best,"the show begins at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 31 at LCC. Presale tickets cost $22 general, $12 UH students and $5 children, with discounts for senior citizens and military. For tickets, call 483-7123, visit www.etickethawaii.com or go to any UH ticket outlet, including all Rainbowtique stores and the UH Manoa Campus Center ticket office. Additional tickets will be available at the door the night of the concert.
Tuva is a semi-autonomous Russian republic isolated from much of the world by surrounding mountain ranges. With a population of 310,000, this group of nomadic hunters and herders has deep spiritual traditions in Shamanism and Buddhism. An old belief asserted a woman who throat sang could be the cause of anything from unhappiness to infertility, even death. It was not until the early 1990s that the practice became acceptable for females.
Tyva Kyzy formed in 1998 and has since toured countries worldwide, including Japan, Europe, Russia and the U.S. According to its musical producer and lead singer, Choduraa Tumat, "We sing to pay our respects to our throat-singing predecessors who have made Tuvan khoomei and sygyt (a separate form of throat-singing) and the Tuvan land famous around to world; to immortalize the women who have sung to the ancient natural world, to their people and to their own souls; and to enrich, bless and praise Tuvan music and throat-singing culture."
For further details on the group, visit www.tyvakyzy.com; log on to www.outreach.hawaii.edu/community or call 956-8246.