Concert Review - "Kalmyk and Tuvan Music from Russia" and Heveder Band - 7/5/13 at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, National Mall, Washington, DC

What first drew my interest to the evening concerts at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival was the fact that pretty much every night there was a "social dance party," which I figured was something like line dancing where everyone dances as a group while someone tells you what to do, meaning you don't actually have to know how to dance and it's a ton of fun.

And then I realized that there was a concert of Tuvan and Kalmyk music on July 5, and I was hardly going to miss that.

The title of the concert is a little misleading, since even though Tuva and Kalmykia are both within the borders of the Russian Federation now, the Tuvan and Kalmyk people are actually part of the Mongol family of languages/cultures. Actually, my idea of what "Mongolian" folk music sounds like was formed (several years ago) by the Tuvan group Huun-Huur-Tu. So this wasn't what one would think of as Russian music - instead it featured a lot of the two-stringed string instruments, gallop-like rhythms and unique vocals one would associate with Mongolian music.

I met my friend M at the Tavern, and we headed to the Voices of the World stage around 6:15, getting there just as the 16-year-old boy from the Tuvan ensemble was leaving the stage after a solo performance. In contrast to the earlier Kalmyk and Tuvan concert I saw, this time, the two ensembles alternated every few songs. I don't think I would have been bored anyway, but the movement and variety helped to hold interest during the soporifically hot and humid DC summer evening. (The performers must have been dying in their costumes, which seemed more suited to a colder climate.)

We saw:

The elderly members of the Kalmyk ensemble. The MC didn't specify how old they are, but implied that they are very old, and that they can still be so energetic and make music is quite impressive.

The Tuvan ensemble (which is known as Alash) played a song in praise of the Bai Mountain, or Bai Taiga, or something like that. It was a rather slow, mournful-sounding song.

The Kalmyk gents played/sang several songs, including a piece of an epic known as Jangar, which was much more low key than I would have expected for an epic story; a song about mother, or mother and father, I don't remember which, which was, by contrast, quite energetic and got the crowd clapping; and another whose theme I don't remember. There was some throat singing involved, done by the guy in white, I think.

Throat-singing demonstration by a member of the Tuvan group. He demonstrated three different styles: xöömei, which has a medium-pitched, wavering sound; sygyt, which is predominantly a high whistling sound (the Tuvan word for it is actually related to the Tuvan word "to whistle); and kargyraa, which is the lowest style, is made using the false vocal folds, and which the MC compared to the mountains - they're all connected at the bottom, but their upper contour goes up and down. This style was dominated by a low undertone, with a medium-pitched, oboe- or jew's-harp-like sound undulating in the middle, and sometimes very faint high notes. I've greatly admired throat-singing for some time now, so it was great to see the different styles demonstrated and explained. (Note: For the styles of throat-singing, I've used the spellings that are used on Alash's website, but there are several alternate spellings for these words in English. That page also has a wealth of information about throat-singing and its connections to nature.)

Performance by one of the Orgaeva Sisters, part of the Kalmyk group. The MC explained the themes of the songs as "a boy who likes a certain girl" and "a girl singing about all the nice things her man does for her." I kind of snickered at that, but perhaps it's unfair to judge a traditional culture by modern standards. These were energetic songs that got the crowd clapping. Overall the crowd was very involved and appreciative.

Then other members of the Kalmyk ensemble joined her, and they performed a song about "a prince and a princess falling in love in the moonlight," and about a Kalmyk national hero of the early twentieth century. During the second song, the Orgaeva sisters danced a bit while singing - taking small quick steps with their feet and making flowing motions with their arms - and the older woman musician came out and a couple other women from the audience, who looked like they might be Kalmykian, started to dance as well.

The Tuvan ensemble came out one last time. They played a song of the Tuvan camel caravan herders, which the MC compared to songs of the American cowboys - a song that could go on for weeks and weeks but never repeat a verse, mostly about how much the camel herder/cowboy misses home and "just wants to leave the camels on a mountain and go back to his wife." After that, they encouraged the audience to sing along as they played "Aa-Shuu Dekei-Oo." This song is on one of the Huun-Huur-Tu cd's I have and is probably my favorite Tuvan song, so I was stoked to hear it live. Alash's version was a little thinner and more hollow-sounding than Huun-Huur-Tu's recording, which may have to do with the instruments used. The vocals, being done by a woman in this case, were also a little cleaner and less throaty than Huun-Huur-Tu's male vocals. It was still great to hear and sing along though. And I found out that in Tuvan, "Aa-shuu dekei-oo" means... "Aa-shuu dekei-oo" XD It doesn't mean anything, actually, it's just scat singing. As for the rest of the song, the MC said it was about "pretty women and fast horses." :P

To finish the concert, the Kalmyk group came out and invited the audience to dance while they played a song that "no Kalmyk person can hear without getting up and dancing." The song was about the wedding of a famous woman - the MC noted that in Kalmyk culture, every event gets recorded in song. I think this song was also sung by the Orgaeva sisters the first time I saw them, and is the one where I complained of the poor explanation by the translator (different guy than this one). Actually, I thought I ought to snap a picture of "Mr. Explaining Guy" as well, so there he is in the shot as the Kalmyk group prepares for their last song. Research reveals that he is Sean Quirk, the only foreign member of the Tuvan National Orchestra, and interpreter for Alash. He is actually capable of throat-singing himself, but didn't perform at this event.

The wedding song did indeed get people up and dancing. Near us, a woman who looked Indian got up and danced in a way that looked pretty similar to what the Kalmyk women were doing, and a man came out of the backstage area and started dancing with her, his hands at his belt and his feet doing little kicks and hops. I was so entertained watching that I didn't really want to get up and dance myself.

Overall, I found this concert a lot more enjoyable than the last Kalmyk and Tuvan performance I went to at the Folklife Festival. It flowed much more smoothly, and the introductions of the performers and songs were more informative and engrossing. Having more context made the songs more enjoyable, although there were still places, such as the spoken parts of the Jangar piece, where I thought I really was missing a lot by not understanding the language. (Not much that could be done to remedy that with this set-up on the Mall, though; they hardly have the budget or support to set up sub- or supertitles, I think.) The music itself was superb, showcasing the variety of musical styles in the Mongolian family. This time, much of the focus was on vocals, so I didn't spend a lot of time imagining riding horseback across the steppe to the tune of galloping strings - the impression was more of epic tales and human connections, of the vast power of nature and the emotions of people journeying across it.

After that highly enjoyable performance, M and I wandered a bit and got frozen yogurt, and then returned to the mall in time for that night's dance concert, which featured the Transylvanian band Heveder. At the beginning I listened to the music enough to notice the rough, scratchy sound of the strings - a lot of pressure on the bow! - but I spent most of the performance trying to master the dance steps, so I have little further impression of the music other than the rhythm - da, da, dit-dit-da. (This seems to be basic dance rhythm across that region, because the other dance tutorial I took part in with my daughter several days before used the same rhythm.) There was lots of spinning and twirling, and we only halfway got the steps by the end of the concert, but it was a fun time. I wish I had listened to the music a little more, but what can you do; I went to dance, and mostly accomplished that goal.

Overall, it was a fun night. In particular, I feel like I would really have been missing out on experiencing Hungarian culture if I hadn't gotten to go to one of the dance nights. After language, music (and the dance that goes with it) is a pretty integral part of culture, and it was really neat not just to see this part of Hungarian culture, but to actually bodily experience it.

Smithsonian Folklife Festival - Kalmyk and Tuvan Ensembles - 6/26/13 at the National Mall, Washington, DC

On Wednesday, I went down to the National Mall to get a glimpse of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival without a whiny kid (or a whiny adult getting bored by the talks I wanted to attend). I was lucky enough to catch a couple of groups performing Mongolian folk music, which is one of my favorite types of folk music. I snapped a few photos with my cell phone, but its camera kind of sucks, so hopefully I can replace them with better ones this weekend or next. There was so much to see at the Folklife Festival - so many talks on endangered languages that I wanted to listen to, so many performances to see, and so many booths of cool stuff from all over the world. Not to mention the intricate structures being built for the Hungarian Heritage section of the festival.

I'm not sure what that is, but it looks like some sort of horse. I hope I can find out more about it next time I go. I didn't actually go in the Hungarian area at all, just walked around it before the festival opened. I only had a few hours there that day and spent them all in the "One World, Many Voices" area which focuses on endangered languages.

I thought there was supposed to be a talk at 11, but when they finally let people into the area, there was nothing happening at the "Talk Story" stage. That was perhaps for the best, because I was drawn to some ornately dressed women who were singing and playing in a small pavilion with an airy, burlap-like ceiling that looks pretty cool in the photos, methinks.

The guy with the flute is just a picture on a backdrop. 

The three people at left in the front are also Kalmyk musicians, I saw them perform later.

Their translator was nervous or unprepared and didn't do a very good job introducing them, so I didn't find out until I hunted down their cd in the marketplace that they're the Orgaeva Sisters. The translator did explain a little about their background - they're Kalmyk (Khalmag), which are a Mongolian people that live in the Republic of Kalmykia in the Russian Federation. They're the only Buddhist culture in Europe. I looked up a bit about the Kalmyks and man, they have had it rough. The entire people were deported and dispersed all over Russia after World War II for having been "German sympathizers." Since then they've been allowed to return to their homes but I can imagine their culture might be a bit fragmented :( So it is especially encouraging to see this ensemble performing in their traditional language.

A guy joined them to play the lute so the sisters could sing a duet. It was a very lively song with a bit of dancing. I love listening to Mongolian and its linguistic relations, but I did wish there was some explanation of the content of the songs - that might have made the experience richer. (Someone did ask what this particular song was about, and the translator summed up the several sentences of explanation from one of the singers as, "A wedding. Marriage." >.<)

Then I did actually attend a panel on endangered languages, and found out a bit about the current situation of Welsh, Hawaiian and Passamaquoddy. Welsh seems to be doing quite well, with schools and TV programs and pretty much everybody in Wales (according to this guy) opting to speak Welsh first. Hawaiian sounds like it's doing ok - the Hawaiian representative on the panel didn't speak English very well and they didn't bother asking anyone to translate for her till close to the end of the panel, but it seemed Hawaiian is also taking off, with immersion schools for young children and classes up to the college level. Passamaquoddy's situation is more dire; its elders are dying off and I don't think anyone learns it as a first language anymore, although there are now after-school classes for children. The whole thing made me think about how stupid the Official English movement is - these people were here first, so why the fuck should the country's official language be English?

Anyway, back to things that other people actually care about. After the panel, I wandered about a bit, learned what Garifuna are (a people descended from Carib, Arawak and West African peoples, that now live mainly on the Caribbean coast of Central America), and saw kids trying to make an ax head and hollow out a piece of wood at the Hawaii exhibit. There was an actual adze for chipping away at the wood, and a guy was letting his 5 year old try it O.o He was supervising the kid pretty closely though.

Then I heard someone throat-singing and thought, "I must find the source of that sound!" I tracked it to a stage under a tent, where another Mongolian-looking ensemble was sitting and a middle aged man was demonstrating different types of throat singing. (I didn't even know there were different types of throat singing!) For those that don't know, throat singing is a vocal style where the singer can produce two or more notes at once, usually associated with Central Asian music. The one I think of first is always the style with a very low undertone and a high whistling tone floating over it - neither of which sounds like a sound that a human should be able to produce - but there are other styles as well, as I found out.

This is where the crappiness of the photos really starts to show.

I tried to get as close as I could without being obnoxious :/

This group turned out be Tuvan, which is another Mongol group, also living within Russia, but situated in the east, in southern Siberia. Their history (at least in the twentieth century) is less tumultuous than the Kalmyks, and their language and culture seems to be consolidating. Tuva is a very isolated place, and the number of Russians living there has steadily been declining, while Tuvan remains the first language for many people there. I'm not sure what this means for their economic situation, though.

I only caught the last couple of styles that the throat-singing gentleman demonstrated, but after that, the young man next to him (I think the translator said it was the guy's son?) who is sixteen, performed a throat-singing song, accompanying it on a lute-like instrument (which might have been a doshpuluur, it sounded something like that).

After that there was a performance on a fiddle by the woman who is the director of the Tuvan National Orchestra (at left in the photos below). Like the Mongolian horsehead fiddle and the Chinese erhu (which was borrowed from the Mongols anyway) the bowstrings actually go under the fiddle's strings. What was unusual was that this fiddle had a much larger soundbox than most fiddles of that type that I've seen.

After that, the man on the right performed a song with intense, mournful vocals (man, could he wail) accompanied by a different sort of fiddle.

Then the Tuvans were whisked off the stage, and the Kalmyks came on. They started with a song performed together as an ensemble, and one of the sisters from earlier sang and danced with a white scarf.

Later on, when both of the sisters were dancing during another song, I noticed that both their vocals and dancing have the faintest Bollywood vibe, and I wonder if this is due to mixing with Indian traditions at some point in the culture's journey across Asia.

After that, there was an old folks' duet.

The old guy who is singing and dancing looked rather dazed, but his voice sounded pretty good. And I really should not have turned my phone upright for this picture cause having to rotate it made it even worse :(

Lastly, there was a string duet.

I wish I could have gotten a better photo of the horsehead fiddle, which is what the guy in white is playing. I believe this piece was some sort of story, cause the guy would stop singing and narrate at times, and there were sudden shifts in mood and tempo, such as a speedy segment at the end, like a horse suddenly galloping off.

There were some other songs as well, I think, but I could not take a lot of photos as I was running out of space on my phone (like always!)

My favorite pieces were those where the stringed instruments characterize galloping over the steppe on horseback, but I also enjoyed the slower pieces where the instruments and vocals gave the impression of rolling hills, or the vastness of nature. And I love the sound of the languages, a little bit rough and earthy, but also capable of fluid beauty. Heck, I am just addicted to Mongolian-style music. I have spent the days since going to the festival listening to Huun-Huur-Tu and Tengger Cavalry XD

Things I found:
You can actually hear a recording of part of the second Kalmyk performance I saw, with intro from their translator, who is apparently an acclaimed linguist. (Maybe public speaking is just not his thing.) And also see a better picture of the old folks.
I tried to find a similar audio page for the Tuvan group, but no luck yet - though I did find this page with  some videos of Tuvan music performances.
And the Tuvan group is apparently called Alash. I am gonna have to look into them, they could join Huun-Huur-Tu as one of my favorite folk music groups.

Edit: I have added a review of a later Tuvan and Kalmyk concert with better photos.