Nomad ensemble steps in with küü

Author: Melissa Marshall

In our culture, where a "good" song is seen as something with a distinguishable refrain, it was refreshing to see the Middlebury College Center for the Arts Concert Hall reasonably full on a Monday night with highly entertained spectators. The Tengir-Too Ensemble, whose musical stylings are anything but conventional to our community, were definitely an act that had to be seen as well as heard. The group, described as "a new ensemble that plays old music," derives its name from the mountain range that links Kyrgyzstan and China, but the ensemble is better known by its Chinese name, Tien Shan, which means "celestial mountains." Their brand of music is rooted in nomadic perception and rings with their understanding of the elemental energies of wind, water and echo, and legendary undertones. It was apparent in the mood that reverberating in the concert hall that Kyrgyz music is also infused with a deep sense of spirituality. Many people of this culture venerate mazars - sites of spiritual power - and the significance linked to these places has served as vital sources of inspiration to the Kyrgyz performers. This was especially seen in Tengir-Too's first piece, an excerpt from the Manas epic, which described the memorial celebration for a fallen hero. However, the ensemble's instrumentation was perhaps the most affective aspect of the performance.

Instrumental genres play a substantial part in Kyrgyz music. Even though it is unlikely that any of the audience members could understand the language of the singers, the instruments did a powerful job of conveying the stories and showing emotions and moods, such as the feeling of loss in "Chong Kerbez," which recounted a man's exile to Siberia under czarist rule. The instruments that induced such complex feelings included wooden and metal jew's harps, komuz (a three-stringed lute), sybyzgy (a side-blown flute), choor (an end-blown flute) and a chopo choor (a potato-shaped ceramic wind instrument known as an ocarina).

Nurlanbek Nyshanov, the group's artistic director, described their work and their use of instrumentation, saying "I want to uncover the whole timbral palette of Kyrgyz traditional instruments. So many nuances, so many colors! The best way to hear and 'see' them is when they come together in an ensemble, where they can reveal themselves more completely." This sense of cohesiveness and the original arrangement of instruments and sounds made for a supremely enjoyable evening.

Students were impressed with the performance - it was something very different from what is usually performed on campus. "I dig on stylistic flourish," said Jeremy Osbourn '06.5, who appreciated the inventive composition of the different pieces. Avery Finch '09.5 was happy to see something new. "I thought that it was really cool that they came here," he said. "It was nothing like I've ever seen before, in an insanely good way."