SOLD OUT - Tradition and Iprovised Music: Altai-Nogai Epic Session with Cheynes and Arslanbek

Traditional and experimental music: Altai and Nogai epics from the peripheries of Central Asia by Cheinesh and Arslanbek with Pandi-Agoston-Rubik's Turan Road Music Introduced and narrated by Dávid Somfai Kara and István Sántha 11th June 2023 / Sunday, Zeneháza (House of Music) Budapest Cheinesh Baitushkina will come from south Siberia from the Altai mountains, where shamanic belief and epic-telling are still among the cultural practices. Arslanbek Sultanbekov's homeland is the Northern Caucasus, and he will present parts from the Nogai Edige epic in Budapest.

The two Central Asian performers will play with Balazs Pandi on drums, Bela Agoston on reeds, and Erno Zoltan Rubik on electronics. David Somfai Kara and Istvan Santha will introduce and narrate this performance, where traditional and experimental styles of music are fused.In the South Siberian Altai mountains, in Cheinesh Baitushkina`s homeland, local indigenous peoples breed small-scale livestock as a prior occupation. Here the shamanic belief is still powerful, and the epic telling has a deep tradition. Shamanism, epic-telling, collecting herbs, smithery, and clan-leading are all among the skills that are charismatic and inherited in the frames of the family. It is the reason that these occupations are intertwined, and there is a shift among them. The shaman conducts the rituals in a separate tent built especially for healing. The clients and the audience come together here. The shaman, during rituals, uses sound and smoke effects. The shaman or the shamaness appears to be various animals. These performances do not need to be beautiful; their function is healing. The shaman aims to empower the clients' emotions, enrich the feeling of sensation, and enforce crying or smiling. We can observe similar tendencies in epic-telling, too. The audience is involved in the su(b)jet sung, organically related, and streamed together with the action. They actively take part in epic-telling, and they are emotionally involved in particular situations performed. They forget everyday life for a while; they relax. Arslanbek Sultanbekov, with 80 million youtube-listeners will perform parts of the Edige Nogai epics (There is a common link between the two performers Cheinesh and Arslanbek's languages, between the Altai and the Nogai languages, that both are in the Kypchak language family of the Turk languages). After World War Two, the epic-tellers' (Kham and Yiraw) activities were prohibited, in Northern Caucasus, too, among the Nogai people. This process, an atmosphere significant till the collapse of the Soviet Union, resulted in epic-telling slipping from the Nogai singing and instrumental music repertoire. The epic-telling practically used to be an inevitable part of the wedding ceremony because the epic-teller confirmed the fact of the marriage by telling a short paragraph from the Edige Nogai epic. Later, there were, and to this day, are only obscured references to this detail, without any epic telling practices. The Nogai epic-tellers (Yiraw) used to accompany their singing (epic-telling) by playing on a cello-like folk instrument (kobyz), and because of not this kind of instrument was preserved, Arslanbek conducted a short investigation and produced finally a unique musical instrument, on which accompanies the epic. Because the Nogai people do have not a written history yet, epics, such as Edige, play an enormous role in maintaining the national identity. Arslanbek recognized the significance of this moment when he decided to study and reintroduce the Edige epic. The first phase of this project is the concert in the Zenehaza (House of Music). Besides playing traditional Altai epics, Cheinesh's aim is to create her own epics, which she will perform during this concert, too. The fusion will be complete with the playings of Hungarian experimental musicians: Balazs Pandi on drums, Bela Agoston on reeds, and Erno Zoltan Rubik on electronics; an introduction and narrations will also be added to the epics by David Somfai Kara and Istvan Santha.