Kyrgyz singer to play national instrument at The Spirit of Tengri festival

Gulzada, a famous singer from Kyrgyzstan, will take part in the first Kazakhstan's International Festival of Contemporary Ethnic Music Performers The Spirit of Tengri in Almaty. The singer will play her own famous compositions. The total of 12 music bands from all around Eurasia will take part in the gala-concert on June 8, Tengrinews.kz reports. Gulzada is the front singer of Ordo-Sakhna folk band. She graduated from Osh music college. She plays bayan, trumpet and Kyrgyz national 3-string instrument called komuz. The compositions that made her famous are Kurmanbek, Men Kyrgyzdyn Kyzymyn, Kurmanzhan Datka songs. Gulzada likes experiments in different music genres, she said in her interview to Tengrinews.kz. “I like experimenting, but ethnic music will always be the basis of my art. This music is eternal music, this is our heritage. Ethnics tunes and antiquity help people look inside themselves and develop,” the singer said. Writing her songs Gulzada takes inspiration from everything around her: mountains, steppes and other beautiful places. The singer remembers that a new song once came to her at night. “I woke up in a trance. I had the lyrics in my head and wrote them down immediately. I had a feeling back then that it wasn’t me who wrote the song, but as if it came from somewhere above. And even now, I feel a similar trance and energy when I sing this song,” Gulzada said. Besides Gulzada, The Spirit of Tengri festival will include performances of Kazakhstan musicians: Aldaspan band, ethnic-folk band Hapanasasa and solo singers Korlan and Naya. The concert will be opened by Roksonaki band. Buryatiya is represented by Namgar band. Tuva singer Sainkho Namchylak will perform together with DJ Dickson from Hong Kong. The audience will also have a chance to listen of Argymak band from Bashkortastan, Shyltys Tannagasheva from Mountain Shoriya, Yuliana from Yakutiya and multi-instrument player Bolot Bairyshev from Altai. The joint project of Tengri FM radio and STV channel The Spirit of Tengri called to bring together ethnic and cultural traditions of the Eurasian continent was launched around a year ago. At the initial stage songs of the performers were rotated on the radio and TV to introduce them to Kazakhstan citizens. Fans could vote for the song they liked at the event’s official page. And now the festival will bring together people, cultural traditions and music genres from all around the world, uniting them under the Kazakhstan sky. The open air concert will be held on June 8 at the square in front of Mega Alma-Ata mall. The show will start at 07:00 p.m. and will last for around 3 hours. The entry to the festival will be free of charge.