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WNPR Connecticut Radio Series: You'll Know Us By Our Songs: Tibetan Music by Dadon & Thupten Tenzin

PerformerPerformed by Dadon Dawa Dolma (Tibetan, born 1968)

PerformerPerformed by Thupten Tenzin (Tibetan)

Date1995 August 9

Mediumreformatted digital files from audio cassette tape - MP3

DimensionsDuration: 18 Minutes, 22 Seconds

ClassificationsInformation Artifacts

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

CopyrightIn Copyright

Object number2015.196.611a-b

DescriptionCassette tape of Dadon performing two Tibetan folksongs and Thupten Tenzin performing Tibetan instrumental music. Thupten is accompanying a dance group. The performance was recorded at WNPR CT radio studios as part of the broadcast series "You'll Know Us By Our Songs."

NotesSubject Note: "You'll Know Us By Our Songs - 8 Connecticut Traditional Musicians and Their Communities," a 5-part radio series on Connecticut ethnic communities and their artists, was produced by CCHAP in collaboration with John Dankosky of Connecticut Public Radio and broadcast from March to September 1996. WNPR repeated the broadcasts throughout 1996 and 1997. Artists featured in the series were Canto Isleño, a Puerto Rican cuatro group; Dadon Dawadolma, Thupten Tenzin, and Lakedhen Shingsur, Tibetan musicians living in Connecticut; Irish singer Josephine McNamara; Greek lyra player and National Heritage Fellow Ilias Kementzides; and Franco American fiddler Rosaire LeHoux and his group Les Joyeux Copains from Windham. The Tibetan musicians were interviewed and some music recorded, then a 5-minute program on the project and the community was produced by John Dankosky, airing the day before the May 11, 1996, opening of the exhibit "Auspicious Signs: Tibetan Arts In New England."

The radio features produced examined the ways in which musical traditions both strengthen and draw from deep cultural roots. In selecting musicians for the series CCHAP and WNPR looked for those who were closely involved in their communities, artists whose personal stories reflected the history, character and the values of their cultural group and who showed deep commitment to serving that group. How these musicians dealt with moving to America from a beloved homeland, sometimes in forced exile, is expressed in their music. They have persisted in passing on traditions and language when so many pressures in contemporary society argue against this. Clearly there is intensive cultural preservation going on among ethnic groups in Connecticut and that brings both joy in the music and a sense of hope for a stronger society.

Performers and interviewees on this tape are Thupten Tenzin and Dadon Dawadolma.

Biographical Note: Dadon Dawa Dolma has been a leading singer and composer of popular music in Tibet and later in the U.S. Sales of her six solo albums, sung in Tibetan, have reached millions in Tibet, China, India, Taiwan, Bhutan, and Japan as well as Europe since she began recording in 1989. Her music is modern and powerful, combining traditional and contemporary Tibetan melodies and instruments. The words of Dadon's songs are written by her and other Tibetans such as a monk working for the Dalai Lama in Dharmasala, India.

Like most Tibetans in exile, Dadon has been fervently committed to informing the world about Tibet's loss of freedom and culture under Chinese domination. Courageously using her popularity to express strong feelings about the liberation of Tibet became too dangerous, so in 1992, Dadon and her then-husband Phumba walked over the Himalayas to refuge in Nepal and later India. They immigrated to Connecticut in 1993, where their second son Tenzin Tashi was born, settling in Middletown.

Dadon learned traditional Tibetan songs from her mother, a renowned singer, later studying violin and piano at the Beijing University of Nationalities. She played in the Tibetan National Orchestra, then studied voice at the Chinese Musical College. Often in the West, Tibetan culture is thought to be homogeneous. In fact, Dadon's song style features elements from many kinds of Tibetan music and dance forms including secular traditional and modern, religious, and classical. Like musician Thupten Tenzin, she knows and loves all these styles, believing that Tibetan culture will survive and strengthen through both preservation and innovation. Also an actress in theatre and films, Dadon has performed at community events and at several large benefits for Tibet, including at Carnegie Hall. She formed a performing group with musicians based at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut in the 1990s, performing widely with this group and solo around the East Coast and for several large Tibet benefit concerts in New York City including the Tibetan Freedom Concert in 1997 along with Michael Stipe and other well-known stars. Dadon and her group performed at the Tibetan Festival at ICR during the Auspicious Signs exhibit in 1996. In addition to music, Dadon and her sons were part of a theatre project at Oddfellows Playhouse in Middletown in 1998.

"...I'm going to sing more for freedom, because in Tibet after the Chinese came they've broken lots of monasteries and they want Tibetan culture to disappear. They try to bring Tibetan kids to China to teach in the Chinese language and teach a very Chinese way. We worry about later when the Tibetan language will be gone. Tibetan young people and others like to listen to my music, so I want to use this road to tell them how important our culture is, how important independence is...they have been learning the wrong way! They don't even know the truth, their story, our story! If I can sing songs about our true culture and what's really happened for us, they will know."

Biographical Note: Thupten Tenzin's parents fled from the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, traveling on foot for about ninety days over the Himalayan mountains when he was three years old. The family settled in Ladakh, India, near the border with Tibet. At age 19, Thupten went to the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in Dharmsala, India to train as a music and dance teacher. He was sponsored by Tibetan Children's Village (TCV), an organization dedicated to educating the children of nearly 100,000 Tibetan refugees living in India. Prime Minister Nehru said that Tibetans could send their children to any of the schools in India, but Dalai Lama said we need special schools for us, so we can keep alive our culture for Tibetan children. After an intensive three-year special course in both music and dance, TCV sent him back to Ladakh to teach in one of the five new Tibetan schools. He later moved to the TCV school in Patli-khul, developing a program in music and dance from the three principal regions of Tibet, organizing a performing troupe, and teaching Tibetan language.

Thupten's teacher at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts was an old master musician named Lhutse who had trained with a folk opera group in Lhasa. Because he was learning many different instruments, songs, and dances, Thupten's instruction and practice lasted from early morning until evening. He became proficient in five instruments important in secular Tibetan music: damyen, a six-stringed lute which is often depicted in Buddhist teachings and paintings as a symbol of the harmony of existence, also appearing as a magical instrument in folk tales; gyumang, a type of zither played with a small hammer; piwang, a two-stringed fiddle in both large and small sizes, and bamboo flute.

These instruments often provide solo or ensemble accompaniment for folk dances which differ from region to region in Tibet. Thupten's repertoire included a secular, quite rigorous classical music which he can also compose. After moving to Norwalk in 1993, he formed a folk dance group with other Connecticut Tibetans, performing around New England for two years. Thupten's wife and two daughters joined him from India in 1996. He passed away in the late 1990s.

Additional audio, video, and/or photographic materials exist in the archive relating to these artists.

Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.

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