By Andrew Hamlin
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Tuvan throat-singing, an ancient technique which produces more than one note at a time from the singer’s vocal cords, can be practiced anywhere and with any other kind of music. In the case of Bady-Dorzhu Ondar, singer and musician with the throat-singing ensemble Alash, he had to travel a bit around Tuva, to discover this—and his musical destiny.
Alash. Courtesy of Alash.
“I was born in the small town of Iyme and spent my early years there,” remembered Ondar, who performs with Alash at the Edmonds Center for the Arts on Feb. 20. “Around age 7, I started going to school in the capital city of Kyzyl, when my family moved there. I remember spending time at my family’s herding camp and helping out there whenever I could.”
“I don’t know if it was fate,” he continued, “but I just always knew I would play music… I don’t really remember the first time I went on stage. I’ve been doing it since I was 4, so it’s always seemed to be a part of my life.”
His musical learning evolved informally.
“I was just imitating what I heard from the people around me, and recordings I heard of Ensemble Tyva,” Ondar recalled. “My first lessons were just someone telling me to imitate what they did, and I would imitate them.”
Ondar said that Tuvan throat-singing doesn’t involve some kind of formal apprenticeship.
“Everyone finds their own way to it, it’s just something that calls to you, that you feel,” Ondar said. “People are pretty shy about singing in public in general, as it’s often something that is done when one is by oneself.”
“Many kids go off and study it by themselves without telling anyone,” Ondar said. “Even after they have become very good, they might not let a lot of people know.”
Ondar has traveled all over the world singing and playing Tuvan music. In his travels, he has experienced life’s attendant highs and lows.
“Seeing so many people of so many different cultures and backgrounds, connecting with the music of our ancestors, is pretty humbling,” Ondar said. “Tuva’s music is very special and part of what it means to be Tuvan, and you get to meet so many amazing people who go on their own learning journeys about Tuvan culture.”
Ondar’s worst memory thus far is a toss-up between the time the group had “six weeks of tour canceled by COVID-19, as we were in the middle of a tour at the time—or maybe the time our van got busted into in Albuquerque and all of our instruments were stolen, right before we were supposed to meet the mayor.”
“That wasn’t a great time for us or the city of Albuquerque,” Ondar said.
Alash believes in mixing musical heritages, and performs with a wide variety of guest artists. The special guest on this tour is Rozell Manley Brown, known as Rahzel, a Black entertainer from Queens, New York, known for his ability to sing or rap, while simultaneously beatboxing.
According to Ondar, Alash met Rahzel at a few festivals, involving “on-stage workshops with groupings of artists from different bands, with some kind of theme, like ‘vocalists,’ or ‘string players.’”
“We really hit it off during these meetings, being mutually impressed by each other’s vocal prowess,” Ondar said. “We had done some work with other beatboxers before, and when this opportunity came up, we were happy to see that Rahzel was interested in collaborating.”
Asked if he’d visited Seattle before, Ondar shared a few stories.
“We’ve been here a couple of times before. We played with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones at a place called Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley, and we visited a class a friend was teaching at the University of Washington, some years after that,” Ondar recalled. “We made sure to visit Bruce Lee’s grave, and we remember it rained a lot.”
“And,” he added, “we’re very excited to be back!”
For more information about Alash’s upcoming performance, visit the Edmonds Center for the Arts website.