URNA | |
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| Background information | |
| Born | 1969 (age 54–55) Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China |
| Instrument(s) | Yangqin |
| Website | www.urna.com |
| Mongolian name | |
| Mongolian Cyrillic | Урна Чахар Тугчи |
| Mongolian script | ᠤᠷᠠᠨᠠ ᠴᠠᠬᠠᠷ ᠲᠤᠭᠴᠢ |
Urna Chahar-Tugchi (born 1969 [1] ), known mononymously as Urna (stylized in all caps), is a Mongol singer and yangqin player from Inner Mongolia, China. [2] She currently lives in Bavaria, Germany.
Urna was born into a family of herders in the grasslands of the Ordos Plateau in Inner Mongolia, [3] a society where song was a ubiquitous part of everyday life. [4] Her first musical training was learning to play the yangqin –the Chinese dulcimer –from a Shanghai Conservatory of Music professor who was visiting Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia. [3] Then, at the age of 18, she moved to study at the Shanghai Conservatory, a challenging step since she had no knowledge of the Chinese language. [3]
She now performs around the world, and is based in Bavaria, Germany. In 2003, she was awarded the RUTH prize in Germany for Best International Artist. [3]
Urna has produced seven [5] albums of music on CD: [6]
She is also featured in the film Two Horses of Genghis Khan . [8]
Andrea Murray's description in The Herald-Times of one of her performances gives an intriguing insight into the extraordinary characteristics of her singing: [9]
She sang like a child, like a banshee, like a warrior, like a lost lamb, like a horse trader .... when the last note was gone, the silent audience stood up and cheered.
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