Taking their name from a word meaning “miracle” or “dance of air in the heat of the day,” Chirgilchin is an ensemble of singing musicians from Tuva, a small Russian province in central Asia bordering Mongolia.  Virtuosos of throat singing, in which the vocal passage is manipulated to create harmonic resonances resulting in more than one pitch at a time, the members of Chirgilchin also play handmade Tuvan folk instruments.   The members of Chirgilchin are masters of several styles of throat singing, each with its own capacity to mimic elements of the wild steppe, communing with the spirits they contain in an expression of their Buddhist shaman tradition:  a stunning mix of magic and meditation.

“To hear Chirgilchin live is to experience a revelation of another reality—the reality of the mountains, the horses, the nomadic peasant way of life. Their traditional songs capture the essence of the Tuvans . . . They remind us of an untouched sanctuary in music—one that rises forth from the earth and blends with the deepest regions of the human voice, rumbling down the memories and hearts of generations upon generations of the Tuvan people of Central Asia.”
—Asian Week