It is a rare honor that we are able to feature Huun-Huur-Tu, the foremost international representative of Tuva's remarkable musical culture on Vocal Planet. For these performers, representing such a culture, however, is surely a delicate task. For how can one convey to outsiders the subtle sensibility of a music so intimately tied to a sense of place - a place whose landscapes and soundscapes are unknown to most listeners in the West? The Tuvans, a South Siberian Turkic people who number some 150,000, preserve what are arguably some of the world's oldest forms of music-making. The best known genre of Tuvan music, xöömei (throat-singing), comprises what one might call a lexicon of musical onomatopoeia in which natural sounds are mimetically transformed into musical representations. Specifically for Vocal Planet, we focused on representing throat-singing, in which a single vocalist simultaneously produces two distinct pitches: a fundamental note and, high above it, a series of articulated harmonics that are sequenced into melodies and manipulated with extreme virtuosity in several canonical styles.

Unlike our Western notions of music, Tuvans not only transform the sounds of the natural world into music through imitation; they also make sonic "maps" of physical landscapes which may be expressed in texted songs, throat-singing, whistling, or other types of vocal production. In short, Tuvan music is not abstract, like most Western music, but radically representational, the product of a cult of imitation that ties it to an animistic understanding of the world. Regardless of it's origins and history, everyone who hears it agrees that Tuvan Throat Singing is unlike anything they've ever heard before.

About the singers:

Kaigal-ool Khovalyg An extremely talented, self-taught overtone singer, Khovalyg worked as a shepherd until the age of 21, when he was invited to join the Tuvan State Ensemble. He settled in Kyzyl and started teaching throat singing and igil. A co-founder of Huun-Huur-Tu, he left the State Ensemble in 1993 to devote his attention to the newly formed quartet. He has performed and recorded with the Tuva Ensemble, Vershki da Koreshki, the World Groove Band and the Volkov Trio. Covering a range from tenor to bass, Khovalyg is particularly known for his unique rendition of the khöömei and kargyraa singing styles.

Sayan Bapa Sayan Bapa, child of a Tuvan father and Russian mother, grew up in the industrial town Ak-Dovurak. He received his musical training in Kislovodsk, Northern Caucasus, where he played fretless bass in a Russian jazz-rock band for several years. In the early 1990s he returned to Tuva to study his roots, and became a member of a folk-rock band, performing traditional Tuvan music on electric instruments. A co-founder of Huun-Huur-Tu, Bapa is a versatile string instrumentalist, and performs on the doshpuluur, igil and acoustic guitar. As a vocalist he is currently specializing in the kargyraa style.

Anatoli Kuular Born in rural Chadan, Kuular was a shepherd before becoming a professional musician. Having perfected his virtuoso throat-singing abilities as a former Soviet-style concert performer of Tuvan folk music, he excels in the borbangnadyr style. He participated in two Smithsonian Folkways recordings on Tuvan music and nature sound imitations ('90 and '99). As a member of the Tuva Ensemble he traveled to the US in 1993, having joined Huun-Huur-Tu to replace Albert Kuvezin. An accomplished tenor vocalist, Kuular also performed with the Khomus Ensemble, and his instrumental expertise focuses on the byzaanchi and mouth harp.

Alexei Saryglar Alexei Saryglar, the youngest member of Huun-Huur-Tu, joined the ensemble in 1995 to replace Alexander Bapa. He completed his musical training in Ulan Ude as a percussionist for classical and popular music, and became a member of the large Russian state ensemble 'Siberian Souvenir'. A multi-talented performer, Saryglar makes his mark as a sygyt singer, and his expertise with traditional Tuvan percussion and string instruments naturally extends into the art of piano playing. Like the other members of the ensemble, he resides in Kyzyl when not on tour.

For more info on Huun-Huur-Tu and Throat Singing:
www.huunhuurtu.com

Huun-Huur-tu's Discography

Biographical and research text courtesy of Dr. Theodore Levin
Artist photos courtesy of Shanachie Records