Modern music with ancient roots

Sainkho Namtchylak, the musical artist from Tuva, Russian Federation, will perform at the Graceland Electronic Music Festival. [Photo provided to China Daily]

With her exceptional voice, well-known for spanning seven octaves and her performance of khoomei (throat-singing), Sainkho Namtchylak, the singer from Tuva, has performed around the world.

She compares contemporary music festivals to "the archaic culture of gathering and sharing visions and dancing, like shamanistic ceremonies".

The singer, originally from the autonomous republic of Tuva in the Russian Federation just north of Mongolia, is one of the headliners of the upcoming Graceland Electronic Music Festival.

The event will be held at Datan Paradise Bird Music Park, Bashang, Fengning county, one of the most beautiful grasslands of northern China, in Hebei province on Sept 3 and 4.

"I think DJs are a modern type of electronic shamans," the 59-year-old singer says. "All that thousand-year basis of ceremonies didn't change. It's the same now.

"I like combination of DJ-ing and live ethnic musicians playing.

"In the big cities, it's different," adds Namtchylak, who has performed in China since 2003, when she was invited to promote her album Stepmother City in Taipei, Shanghai and Shenzhen, in South China's Guangdong province.

Famous in avant-garde and world music circles, Namtchylak grew up in an isolated village in the south of Tuva.