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Huun-Huur-Tu

Artist Biographies

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.

Radik Tolouche (Tiuliush)

Radik was born in the Ovur area of The Republic of Tuva, near the border with Mongolia. He has been interested in studying and performing folk music since childhood, and he learned throat-singing from his grand-dad. While Radik was still in secondary school, his family moved to Kyzyl. After receiving his high school diploma, he started studying medicine. Upon graduation he worked at the Centre of Folk Medicine in Kyzyl. He later graduated from the Chyrgal-ool Arts School (Kyzyl), where he had been studying igil. He participated in various Tuvan rock and folk collectives. Radik currently teaches igil at the Kerndenbilija Arts School of The Republic of Tuva. He joined Huun-Huur-Tu in 2005.

Alexei Saryglar

Alexei Saryglar 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.

Kongar-ol Ondar

Ondar

Ondar was born in 1962 near the Hemchik River in western Tuva, within sight of the ruins of the Chadaana Buddhist Monastery destroyed by the communists in the 1930's. Ondar's epic saga would converge around his singular vocal gift to make him Tuva's musical ambassador to the world. As a child, he was taught the fundamentals of throat-singing by his uncle. "Throat-singing is a tradition of Tuva that is very old," Ondar recently remarked. "it is inspired by the beautiful landscape of Tuva, which is full of sounds -- the windswept open range with grazing livestock, the mountain forests full of birds and animals and the countless streams tumbling out of the mountains onto the open range to form mighty rivers. Our throat-singing has been passed down for countless generations. It is the immortal part of ourselves.

By 1980, after finishing his primary education, Ondar had already begun his career as a professional vocalist, employed by the Tuvan House Of Culture. He later became the MC and featured singer with the popular local group, the Cheleesh Ensemble. In late 1983, Ondar was drafted into the Soviet Navy, which seemed blissfully unaware that its young recruit hailed from an entirely landlocked country. While stationed on Siberia's Kamchatka Peninsula, he suffered a broken neck while loading hundred pound bags of sugar and, after 45 days in sick bay, was honorably discharged.

Returning to his native land, Ondar studied at the Kyzyl Pedagogical Institute and became a Russian language teacher. The haunting music of his homeland, however, was never far from his heart and mind. "As I am a Tuvan, I believe that throat-singing is in my blood," asserts Ondar. "When I was a boy, I would go every summer high into the mountains to stay with one of my mother's uncles. There, in the evenings in the camp, I would hear the old man sing to himself. He would have a few drinks of arak -- the local brew made from fermented goat's milk -- and sing two, three or even four notes at once.

Later, at school, I sang and sang and sang, until I got it, too." It was from such rich recollections and deep cultural roots that Ondar determined to make throat-singing his life. In 1985, he formed the Tuva Ensemble which, defying official displeasure, began performing concerts both in Tuva and in neighboring Soviet republics. By the early '90s Ondar's reputation had begun to take on an international scope, first with a series of well-received performances in Europe and then as the winner of the UNESCO-sponsored International Festival of Throat-Singing. A year later, after a hugely successful tour of the Netherlands, the Tuva Ensemble recorded their first album, Tuva: Voices From The Land Of The Eagle (on the independent PAN label). Small wonder that, in 1992, he was honored by his grateful nation with the title of People's Throat-Singer of Tuva. Ondar's odyssey had only begun. As word-of-mouth about this remarkable vocal style and its prime practitioner began to spread among a select group of savvy musicians,

Ondar found himself in demand for a diverse range of globe-spanning projects. In 1993 alone, he performed and recorded with The Kronos Quartet, for their album Night Prayers; Ry Cooder, as well as Frank Zappa, the Grateful Dead's Micky Hart, The Chieftains and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. Ondar was also a special guest at a command performance in New York City, sharing the stage with a troupe of Tibetan Monks and Japanese avant garde pioneer Kitaro.

In 1994, Ondar joined forces with San Francisco artist Paul "Earthquake" Pena to record a groundbreaking blend of throat-singing and blues, aptly titled Genghis Blues. He subsequently went on tour with Pena, and after returning home, sang for an august audience that included Tuvan leader Sherig-ool Oorzhak and former Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin, who afterward named Ondar a National Artist Of Russia. It was a far cry from the days when the authorities all but banned throat-singing in the Soviet Empire. Additional accolades, awards and albums followed, including the 1995 release Echoes Of Tuva and appearances at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum, the Japan Society in New York and the Korea Society Center at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.
http://www.ondar.com/

“Tyva Kyzy” (“Daughters of Tuva”) is the first and only women’s group in Tuva that performs all styles of Tuvan throat-singing. This from of multiple tones harmonic singing has been practiced mostly by men and prohibited for women. Tyva Kyzy dares to perform publicly this ancient art of singing in their own unique “feminine” style.

Here is Tyva Kyzy’s “setkilemden sergek yr-dyr” (a cheerful song of my soul). The CD comes with a 20 page full color book and a 6 panel fold out “eco-digit pak.” This is a very elegant package with minimal plastic. DISCOGRAPHY>>

http://tyvakyzy.com