Louder brighter: The Spirit of Tengri to be seen from space

The 2nd Spirit of Tengri festival has prepared some surprises for the Almaty folks and the guests of the Southern city of apples, Tengrinews.kz reports.

One of the surprises will be the performance of one of the oldest Kazakhstani ethnic bands Roksonaki. The band will perform 5 songs at the festival. Three of the songs will be ancient Kazakh songs.

“We give preference to natural sound. When we use a national instrument, we try preserving its natural and native speech. (...) We are no shamans, we just want to play old songs that passed down to us through generations so that they are not forgotten. The lyrics are very unusual. Some words are untranslatable and have their own sacred meaning,” the frontman of the band Ruslan Kara said.

The band originated in the 90th and played mostly ethno rock. They slowly changed their repertoire by adding more folk and old traditional songs. In addition to Kazakh instruments, the musicians use foreign instruments such as Australian aboriginal didjeridoo.

This year the festival will be louder and brighter. The tech crew prepared powerful lightening system for the festival. “In terms of sound, we are offering German Line Source System with a capacity of 100 kW. It is quite a lot. The whole neighborhood will hear it and you can even dance in your apartment. For lights we are using new equipment. It is called K20 and it is a very powerful and beautiful light. We are going to use light-emitting diodes and so-called beam equipment. It is a very powerful equipment and it can even be see from the space,” Konstantin Bykov of the KZ Sound said. 

There is a great variety of artists coming to Almaty this year. Musicians and singers from Japan, Buryatia, Yakutia, Austria, Ecuador and other countries will perform at the festival alongside Kazakhstani ethnic artists. All in all, the festival will bring 12 bands in one-day concert.

The Spirit of Tengri contemporary music festival will take place on June 7th at the Republic Palace square (crossing of Abai and Dostyk streets); the beginning is at 5 p.m., entrance is free.

By Gyuzel Kamalova