Sheffield — The ensemble Alash, a group of Tuvan throat singers on a U.S. tour from halfway across the world, will perform at Race Brook Lodge this Thursday, September 26, as part of their 25th anniversary tour.
Throat singing involves manipulating the voice to sound several pitches at once. Overtones flutter or vibrate above a sustained note, resulting in something that can sound eerie and “unhuman,” but “anyone could potentially learn if they wanted, absolutely any human with vocal chords,” says Sean Quirk, their manager and interpreter.
Many cultures have some musical form that gets lumped under the term “throat singing,” Quirk explains. It can be found in Sardinia, in South Africa, among the Inuit of the far north, as well as closer to Tuva, which is an ethnically distinct region in southern Siberia. Mongolians to the south, for instance, have their own tradition that sounds different, but they are also copying the Tuvan technique in what they claim is a revival of their own tradition.
Quirk compares it to how different cultures around the world have all developed string instruments, but the exact mechanisms of how they are built and played and sound vary. “Everybody has [a] voice, so it’s natural that a good number of cultures are going to develop some kind of way to use their voice that’s a little different than the standard. But only in Tuva is it as versatile and subtle as it is there.”
Quirk, who lived in Tuva for 20 years and worked in the orchestra, says all throat-singing traditions are “really interesting and awesome in their own ways, but Tuvan music reaches an amazing high musical level, because all their music is based on this way of thinking about sound. It’s all unified. It is not this extra, added thing that they’re doing on top of some music they already have.”
Traditional instruments accompany the singing, but Alash uses their voices “like finely tuned musical instruments,” to the point where it can be hard to tell, amid the fluid sound, if it is an instrument or a voice. The result is often very meditative. “People assume it would be great for yoga class,” says Quirk. But much of it can be very upbeat and rhythmic, too.
“People at first are a little unsure,” Quirk says. “All they know is it’s going to be some kind of weird singing. And then you come in and you hear it, and it starts to resonate your soul.” People often react with “Wow, I didn’t expect it to be so musical.”
Tuva, says Quirk, is about the size of his home state of Wisconsin, but has less than 350,000 people. It is part of Russia, but “you don’t feel like you’re in Russia. You feel like it’s another country, because it’s isolated on all sides by mountains.” This isolation kept it culturally distinct, helping keep this “unique and ancient art form alive.”
The three members of Alash, Bady-Dorzhu Ondar, Ayan-ool Sam, and Ayan Shirizhik, were trained in traditional Tuvan music since childhood and studied at Kyzyl Arts College just as Tuva was beginning to open up to the West. Twenty-five years into their professional career, Alash is “absolutely at the peak. They’re the masters,” declares Quirk.
When he arrived in Tuva to study music on a Fulbright in 2003, Quirk met Bady-Dorzhu Ondar by chance. At that time, there was internet at one cafe in Kyzyl, the main city. “I thought, ‘These guys probably won’t know what a saxophone is, or won’t play guitar.’” Ondar, one of the first people he met, 19 at the time, “was shredding on guitar and playing Tuvan songs and Russian songs and American songs too. He was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve heard of ACDC.’ And of course, nowadays, everyone’s got Tiktok over there too.”
Alash has collaborated with bluegrass, country, and rock ‘n’ roll musicians. They have done mashups of “Ghost Riders in the Sky” with Tuvan music. Their 2022 album “Embodiments” is a live recording with the hip-hop artist Shodekeh. Their next project, says Quirk, will “mix it up with bluegrass music again.” Traditionally, Tuvans were a horse-riding, nomadic herding people, and this is reflected in the lyrics and rhythms of their music, drawing comparison to American cowboy culture. Country and folk music fans in the U.S. hear them and say, “Oh man, that sounds right at home.”
And just to clarify, people in Tuva also “sing in what we would think of as a regular way as well, without any extra manipulation of the voice,” says Quirk. It is not like throat singing is the only type of traditional music.
One can listen to different throat-singing styles on Alash’s website, with descriptions comparing them to elements and sounds in nature. According to Quirk, “What’s impressive is the way they use all of the styles to mesh together and create a musical composition, the way they can get so precise and compositional understanding the qualities of each style, and use those like extra instruments to weave together this full beautiful tapestry.”
Alash was on tour in the U.S. last winter, and following COVID, “we’re happy to be kind of getting back into a rhythm,” says Quirk. “It takes a lot of effort to get a Tuvan ensemble touring around the world,” he says, not to mention difficulties that arise right now because Tuva is part of the Russian Federation.
“People should not be put off by the fact that they maybe have never heard of the art form before, or that it sounds like something really crazy and exotic,” Quirk advises. “They’re doing really, really amazing, high level musical stuff. And it’s great for any age, any walk of life, any musical interest. It’s just really fascinating and impressive.”
Tickets for the September 26 show, which starts around 8 p.m., are available on Race Brook Lodge’s website.
