TUNDRA AND LIGHTNING

Three leading acts from Tuva are set to electrify audiences in both Beijing and Shanghai with their exotic sounds at this year's Stallion World Music Festival

Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Richard Feynman (1918-88) dreamed about visiting Tuva but never managed to get there. He once gave American ethnomusicologist Ted Levin recordings of Tuvan khoomei, a unique throat-singing technique where the performer produces two or more notes simultaneously. Overwhelmed by this mysterious sound, Levin then traveled to Tuva in 1987 where he met the four musicians who would go on to form the group Huun-Huur-Tu.

Formed in 1992, Huun-Huur-Tu, which means "sunshine" in Tuvinian, released their first album 60 Horses in My Herd in 1993, and made their debut in the United States later the same year, thanks largely to Levi's efforts. This helped the band gain global recognition and set them up to become ambassadors for the little-known region.