Huun-Huur-Tu

Photograph page 3

Photographs by Ingrid Verhamme, taken during the Midwest USA tour, January 1999. HHT school concert Minneapolis

Ted Levin answers the question "Where on Earth is Tannu Tuva?" during a school concert in Minneapolis....
HHT school concert Minneapolis

.... and explains what part of the bull was used for making the xapchyk, one of Alyosha's percussion instruments. The rattle is made by putting sheep kneebones in a dried bull's scrotum. Sheep kneebones or ankle bones can be used as dice in certain games, and the bull scrotum doubles as a Tuvan salt shaker. HHT school concert Minneapolis

Kaigal-ool on the igil, and Sayan on the guitar. Not your typical Tuvan instrument, the guitar adds a special musical color to many traditional songs in Huun-Huur-Tu's repertoire. A notorious example is the song "Agitator" (on the CD 'The Orphan's Lament'), a song from the 1920s describing the wit, sincerity and good looks of one Soviet agitator, riding on horseback from one settlement to another in the new socialist republic of Tannu Tuva, to extol the virtues of the Soviet way of life.
It will come as no surprise to HHT fans that Sayan, a pro on the acoustic and electric guitar, is a Frank Zappa aficionado, and closely watches the left-hand fingering on every John McLaughlin videotape he gets his hands on!

Dead silence among the school kids, and jaws dropping as Kaigal-ool produces three notes at once! The young student crowd, typically known as one of the most hard-to-please audiences, whistled and cheered, and gave a warm round of applause at the end of the concert. Music proved to be the universal language again as quite a few kids came up to greet the musicians and wish them well, while they were packing the instruments in their van for the next leg of the tour.

Photo page 1 In-store performance pictures
Photo page 2 Rouen Nov 5th '98 performance
Photo page 4 The Midwest leg of HHT's 1999 US tour, part 2
Photo page 5 HHT and friends
Photo page 6 HHT in Montreal