Special guest of gala-concert
LOTEN NAMLING - THE WHITE CRANE OF TIBET

“Strong man. Strong voice”
His Holiness Dalai-lama XIV

Interview with Loten Namling

My parents escaped from occupied Tibet in 1959. They went to the Indian town of Darjeeling, where I was born, grew up and studied… Then I studied philosophy in St Stephan’s College of Delhi University.
When I was a little child, I showed a vivid interest to a Tibetan culture, and the whole environment favored to this; for us, young schoolchildren, of great delight were annual performances of Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts. And when I had my fifteenth birthday my parents gave me danien, Tibetan lute, and soon I knew what happiness is to give people music… Danien, this word is translated as mellifluous, looks very much like lute. It has six strings and a long fingerboard with the decoration as a horse head. Sounding board is usually covered with sheep or goat skin.

Since 1989 I live in Switzerland. Western musicians influence me a lot. I like to play with them and open an amazing variety of a new musical culture to myself. At present moment I’m working on the project “Tibet-blues”, where I sing and play danien. Different songs – from classical to folk. More than others I like songs in “nangma-to-shea’ style, especially “Alemaho”, which was composed by the 6th Dala-lama. I loved this song since my childhood, and listening to it I believe, that once I’ll go back to Tibet…

In 1998 I went to India to see my mother. I visited Dharamsala, Ladakh, experienced lots of interesting things. There was a unique situation with me in the Ladakh mountains, on the height of four thousand and five hundred meters. A tiny village-just few stone houses with the straw roofs and nobody around, only somewhere in the corner of the small pasture a couple of yaks are grazing. I breathed in deeply the air of Tibet – my native peaks rise over in front of my eyes… Inspired by this I started to play danien – and at once from nowhere a man appeared and started to sing and dance, as if he was released from many years of incarceration… He was old, poor and blind, but there was nobody on the earth happier than he at that moment… And then – then the whole village gathered around me, listening to my songs, which sounded on the Top of the world… After this case I believed that my songs bring happiness to people. There were other interesting things, which gave me power and ability to bring the precious Tibetan culture to the world…

October, 31
In "Svetlanovsky" (Big) Hall
Moscow International Performance Arts Center on Red Hills  

Adress: Kosmodamianovskaya quay, 52, bld.8
Phone (multi-channel): daily, 730-10-11 (from 10 to 22)