Sound of the grasslands

A music producer from Inner Mongolia has gathered some of the best musicians from the remote region to play their music to audiences across the globe. Chen Jie reports.

It was early morning when 30-year-old Altengaro bid farewell to his 600 sheep and 50 horses on the pasture at Xilin Gol League, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, and set off for Beijing. After a 12-hour bus ride, he went directly to a small studio with his hubosi (a Mongolian plucked stringed instrument) on Dongsi Street, where his "brothers" were rehearsing for their first tour to North America.

"We can smell the grass scent on him," says Zhu Zhizhong, 52, the producer who gathered these Mongolian folk musicians and formed the band Ih Tsetsn in 2008.