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Tyva Kyzy concert ****of 5
The fact that they come from a faraway land is clear straight away by their exotic garments and unusual instruments. That their music doesn’t sound familiar from the first moment is also not surprising. But as soon as they start to sing the unsuspecting listener is taken by one surprise after another.
In Tuva, their Central Asian motherland, exists a singing tradition that uses the voice abilities in the most peculiar way. By special technique of amplifying and suppressing certain overtonal frequencies appears an illusion of two voices coming from one mouth. Moreover, these voices sometimes follow different melodical lines. In the neighboring Mongolia and Khakassia they also sing in a similar way, but nowhere it is so refined as in Tuva.
By definition khoomei is a domain of men. But times change and even in Tuva women break the traditional role separation (?). Despite their big respect for the ancient shamanistic tradition Tyva Kyzy are everything but a museum piece. With a refined ensemble play on string and bow instruments, with subtle addition of multivoicing to the singing parts they make their tradition tastier for untrained ears. The most extreme khoomei styles - like sharply high sygyt and rumbling kargyraa – are carefully measured and combined with ballads sung with less exotic voice range. But also here their love for the nomadic way of life remains central.
The women of Tyva Kyzy are convincing not only due to their singing and playing techniques or the ability to synchronically start off a fast galloping rhythm with one nod only. It is their playful and light approach, that shows a considerable contrast to the still compulsory manner shown by their male colleagues bring the Tuvan tradition to stage.
Ton Maas. Volkskrant, NL 2012
- Volkskrant, Netherlands
“On a chair sits the Tuvan woman Choduraa Tumat, and sings so beautiful, that the whole room was shaking” Anne Middelboe - Information
…. The other important – and statistically improbable – thing to know about Tyva Kyzy is that they are the best. When you listen to European throat singers, Mongolians or Tuvan men, after the initial amazement of hearing numerous overtones and two simultaneous pitches, interest tends to log. These rare women throat singers go far beyond novelty and shock value. They are outstanding musicians …
(Janos Gereben, San-Francisco Classical voice, 2005)
- San-Francisco Classical voice
Discography
CD album "Setkilimden sergek yr dyr" 2005 Tuva Trader
CD album "Igil unu ijem unu" 2009 Tuva Trader
CD album "Ugulzalar" 2009 (c) Tyva Kyzy
DVD "No Comment" 2010 (c)Tyva Kyzy
Photos
Bio
Tyva Kyzy (Tuva, Siberia, Russia)
Tyva Kyzy (Daughters of Tuva) is recognized as first and, to date, the only group of women performing throat-singing in Central-Asia. Khoomei, or throat-singing in Tuvan, is still considered to be a domain of male singers. This type of overtone singing is typical for nomadic people of Central Asia. In Tuva it reached the level of true refinement with a big range of variety in styles.
The group Tyva Kyzy is artistically driven by Choduraa Tumat (1974), who studied music in Kyzyl (Tuva) and Ulan-Ude (Buryatia). She masters nearly all styles of Tuvan throat-singing and plays various traditional instrument. She is also a lecturer at the Kyzyl Pedagogical School. In 1998 she brought together a number of enthusiastic young ladies in order to make an all-women group of essentially Tuvan music and an ambition to break the ages-long taboo on women singing with throat techniques.To buildup repertoire for the band Choduraa had a complicated task to adopt the otherwise male songs for female voices. The core questions were how is a female throat-singers performance different from that of men? and what special styles are particular to female throat singers?
The main accomplishment remains the female throat-singing songs, although the group also performs plenty of normal voice songs. Apart from that all members of the group are outstanding instrumentalists, playing on various instruments like igil and doshpuluur, or otherwise more rare like chadagan and byzaanchi. Thus their music covers the whole range of traditional Tuvan musical colors.
Given a blessing by a late great master of khoomei Oorzhak Khunashtaar-Ool the groups mission proved to be totally relevant. The treasury of Tuvan music has been enriched with a number of CD albums of Tyva Kyzy, Choduraa Tumat solo works, concert tours, workhsops and female students of Tyva Kyzy around the world.
Band Members
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