Blind Joe Mendelbaum Blues Band<\/a> play distorted guitar at the Dane County (Wis.) Junior Fair. He was overwhelmed, he said, by “the splendor and majesty of it” – and the fact that the band was “very loud.” \u00a0“I’m a white guy who grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, and listened to Chicago blues,” he said. “I went on from there to many musical traditions.”The latest, with a splendor and majesty (and occasional loudness) of its own, comes from Tibetan Buddhist nuns who live in meditative exile in Nepal.\u00a0“It sounds good to me,” Tibbetts said. “That’s enough. Music at its best always has an awake quality to it, an elevated quality.\u00a0“The most important things are the original words and the original tunes, and we aren’t changing those. With the Western instruments, we’re adding some ornaments.”<\/p>\r\nThe songs that Drolma and the others brought with them reflect the altruism and self-confidence that are at the heart of Tibetan Buddhism. Some of the sounds will be familiar to people who have heard monks perform in the Twin Cities: harsh and startling horns, jangling bells, powerful drumbeats.\u00a0“I think some people will be transformed,” Tibbetts said. “Others will be irritated. It’s really evocative and spacious music.<\/p>\r\n
“And I think Choying’s voice is really heartbreaking.”<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“The lead singer sits at a low table on the garage-studio floor. Wrapped in a purple robe, she sings with her nearly shaved head bowed slightly, eyes closed, hands folded in her lap. Her face shows nothing but calm. Her lips barely move, and at times it\u2019s difficult to tell whether she is singing or it\u2019s a recording that\u2019s being played back.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[12,17,102,46,51,60,64,65,72],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Ch\u00f6--Minneapolis Star-Tribune 1998 · Steve Tibbetts<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n