Multiflora Productions presents:
Wednesday May 8 * doors 730 music 8 * $20 * TICKETS
The word Chirgilchin has two translations:"dance of the air in the heat of the day" and "miracle". Established in 1996, Chirgilchin is a group of musicians from Tuva, a small Russian province north of Western Mongolia. Their music tells stories of their homeland, its horses and its people. The monotone sustained notes that branch out into overtone singing with slight shifts in pitch give Tuvan music its characteristic buoyant yet meditative drone quality. The songs are sung in minor pentatonic scale, similar to American blues. Throat-singing is an extraordinary vocal form in which one singerproduces two or more voices simultaneously, the low sounds in the throat harmonizing with middle and high flute-like overtones, to create richly layered melodies that evoke Central Asian steppes and nomadic life. Atmospheric and mesmeric, this music is almost too difficult to describe in words and must be heard to be believed. The most advanced forms of throat-singing come from Tuva, and the members of Chirgilchin are among the best and most accomplished throat-singers in all of Tuva.
Yuliyana is a virtuoso in the art of the khomus, the national instrument of the Sakha Republic. It functions much like a Jew’s harp, but differs in several respects. A conventional Jew’s harp is limited in range, volume, and pitch. The khomus is loud and strikingly expansive in range. Yuliyana’s skill allows her to play sounds across about three octaves. She was the winner of the Ethnic Sound category in the Discovery International Music Pop Festival in Varna, Bulgaria. Yuliyana has performed in Korea,
France, Germany, Belgium, USA, Japan, China, Thailand, Holland, Norway, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and Turkmenistan. Her music draws on the powers of Nature and the wisdom and traditions of the Yakut people to portray the timeless relationship between Man and the Universe.
Special guest opening act Kamyar Arsani is a multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter born and raised in Tehran, Iran. Kamyar's musical mission is to spread cultural awareness and unity by mixing contemporary musical trends with traditional Persian folk music. Kamyar has spent over 20 years performing and researching the daf and its roots. Kamyar's songs and performances are very much inspired by the people of Iran and their history of struggle and protest. Kamyar recently collaborated with Benjamin Schurr and DC’s BLIGHTRECORDS and produced an electronics-backed Daf album called *Voices in the Dark*. In the words of a reviewer: ”this isn’t so much music as it is downright spiritual. It is a movement.”