Während man den Interpretationen dieser alten Weisen lauscht, vermeint man Landschaften zu sehen, die man nie betreten hat. (taz, Berlin)

Engelsgleich zelebrierte sie mühelos die gesamte Palette menschlicher Sangeskunst. (Plauen)

Zaubermacht einer Stimme läßt die Weiten des Graslandes erfahren (Celle)

Schon mit den ersten Takten ihres Konzertprogramms erzeugte sie durch ihre Stimme und ihre verzaubernde Präsenz eine so intensive Atmosphäre, dass man sich … kaum zu atmen getraute. (Bad Wildungen)

Wenn sie von Liebe singt, ahnt man etwas von der Tiefe dieses Gefühls (Trossingen)

Eine wunderbar geschlossene, stimmungsvolle Ensemblearbeit (Bremen)

Vor dem inneren Auge tauchen Assoziationen von Musik gewordener Trauer voller Zärtlichkeit auf. Fremdartig und doch seltsam nah trägt die Musik in eine Welt erhabener Weite. (Wesermarsch)

English
Mongolian Singer Performs at Frick Fine Arts Centre

The Pitt News, September 20, 2000 by Rob Gebhart

The young woman listening to the music with her head on her boyfriend’s shoulder didn’t need to understand the words that Urna sang. Language was not a great enough barrier to block the emotion pouring through the singer’s voice. Urna Chahar-Tugchi, Mongolian singer and composer, performed “Songs from the Grasslands” with her husband, Robert Zollitsch, last night at the Frick Fine Arts auditorium to an audience of students, faculty and members of the community. Pitt’s department of music presented the concert, which was sponsored by the Asian studies department and Honors College. The couple opened with “Taliin Juud,” translated as “Dream of the Steppe.”

The translated lyrics are “Flowers of the Steppe/songs of joy/melodies of a happy land/hymns of praise from young and old.” All of Tugchi’s songs are from her native land. She was born and raised in rural Mongolian farmland and collected folk songs that the people from that region sing. She blends them with her own sound to create a music unique to her. “In Mongolia, every song tells a story,” Chahar-Tugchi said. She used her four octave vocal range to tell stories varying from a monk who is made fun of for his stupid love of a woman, to a sorrowful ballad about the loss of a beautiful grassland to Chinese settlers. Wearing a traditional gold tunic, Chahar-Tugchi sat on a red chair, resting her right arm on her crossed legs and bracing her left arm as she held the microphone completely still. She sang with her eyes closed. Sitting several feet away, Zollitsch accompanied her on the Bavarian zither. The zither is a quadrangle shaped instrument with 37 strings, played horizontally. Zollitsch’s low, overtone singing added an almost eerie element to the songs.

Zollitsch, who was born in Germany, has studied Asian throat singing in Tibet. The sounds come from the very bottom of the throat and have a very inhuman quality. “It’s fantastic. I’m impressed,” said Josh Steck, a senior majoring in music. “I didn’t know what to expect, but I’m really enjoying it.” Often there was delayed applause following the end of a song. The audience still entranced by the music. After the final song, the applause was so prolonged and demanding, that Chahar-Tugchi and Zollitsch returned to the stage for an encore. As the show came to a close, the two performed “Golden Bowl,” a song traditionally sang in Mongolian homes as guests drink strong schnapps from a golden bowl.

Mongolian Vocalist Fulfills Her Mission

Reading Eagle/Times, September 16, 2000 by Susan L. Peña

Inner Mongolia is about as far away from here as one could travel – a place nearly unimaginable to us. But Urna Chahar-Tugchi made her distant homeland tangible to those who heard her entrancing concert at the Allbright College Meridian Theatre Thursday night. In their first American concert, Chahar-Tugchi and her German husband, composer/zither player, Robert Zollitsch, presented both traditional Mongolian songs and original music written in traditional, central Asian styles. With her clear, focused voice, capable of an enormous range of pitches and dynamics, Chahar-Tugchi managed to overcome language barriers, easily communicating the emotional sense of each song.

Standing serenely behind the microphone, eyes closed and hands often behind her back, she gave a sampling of the astonishing variety in this rich repertoire of folk music, which she is determined to preserve. Zollitsch, accompanying her on a plucked zither, proved that a skilled musician need no electronics (other than amplification) to produce an endless array of sonic effects. His instrumental arrangements for these songs were always intriguing, often haunting, and perfectly suited to Chahar-Tugchi’s subtle, evocative singing.

For some pieces, he added some well placed, Tibetan style throat singing, sounding a bit like a human didgeridoo, and also some percussion. They opened with a keening, almost Celtic like song about a shepherd pining for his lost love, followed by a lively, mocking song in the more popular style. Later, Chahar-Tugchi sang two examples of “Urdiin duu” (long song), a soft, intimate style which has nearly disappeared. While both were lovely, the masterpiece was “Banchan Somo,” a poignant song about a destroyed monastery.

The duo also included two powerful songs about horses, so important to the traditional Mongolian economy, and a comical song which portrayed all of the animals of the Mongolian calendar. Chahar-Tugchi’s own “Dream of the Steppe” and “In the Steppe” rounded out the program. In the latter, she sang aptly: “To distant lands I will carry my inheritance, songs and stories borne out of the land of my cradle.” And so she did.

Mongolian musician-of-the-world to visit her spiritual homeland

The UB Post, June 8, 2005 by Peter K. Marsh (Ph.D)

Ulaanbaatar is a city rich in music. On nearly any given night of the week, Ulaanbaatarites can choose from a wide diversity of Mongolian musical styles and sounds, from pop to jazz to folk to classical. But on June 20 and 21, capital city residents will have the opportunity to hear Mongolian music unlike any they have heard here before.

Urna Chahar-Tugchi is an Inner Mongolian artist whose music does not easily fit standard musical genres. She is a Mongolian singer whose music draws from the ancient traditions she learned and mastered while growing up among her family on the steppes of the Ordos grasslands of Inner Mongolia. But hers is also a restless and endlessly curious musical talent that is constantly seeking out new and interesting musical sounds from around the world.

Drawn from the steppes to music schools first in Hohhot and then Shanghai, Urna has shown a strong desire to master her art in her own way. From her earliest recordings, her music has centered on the traditional songs and memories of her childhood in Mongolia while also experimenting with new vocal techniques, song structures, and musical rhythms. Her career has been shaped by long and fruitful collaborations with artists from entirely different musical traditions, which have allowed her a freedom to explore the limits of her own musical traditions.

Now based in Bavaria, Germany, Urna is a well-known presence on the musical stages of Europe. She has collaborated with many renowned musicians on the international world music scene, including Ramesh Shotham from India, Muhammud Reza and Saam Schlamminger from Central Asia, and the Hungarian violinist Zoltan Lantos, who will accompany her to Mongolia.

Some European critics have named Urna one of the best ‘Asian Divas’ now alive, and her contributions to world music were recognized in 2003 with a major German music award, the Ruth Prize, which named her the “Best International Artist.”

Urna portrays her latest recording, Amilal (2004) as “a personal record of her travels after leaving Mongolia,” one that “portrays her views of the world and human beings, as well as her wish for a peaceful world.” She describes her current musical style as drawing less on her traditional Mongolian musical roots and more on her “emerging identity as a ‘world citizen.’”
But those who hear Urna sing feel that her songs evoke the immense grasslands of Mongolia and tell of the Mongolian ways of life. Some have described Urna’s singing as akin to the experience of a religious ceremony-although her music does not necessarily speak of religion, she explains, “I interpret my songs with all my life and energy; I feel rebirth after each performance.”

Her visit to Mongolia in June is part of a spiritual homecoming for her. Like most Inner Mongolians, Urna regards Mongolia as her spiritual homeland, the place from which originated her people and their traditions. On this, her first trip to Mongolia, Urna will hold concerts in Kharkhorin on June 17 and at the Opera and Ballet Theater concert hall in Ulaanbaatar on June 20 and 21 at 8pm (tickets available from the theater box office). She says she is eager to sing to Mongolians here and to share with them her own unique form of Mongolian music.