AnDa Union
Music from Inner Mongolia
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Eisenhower Auditorium
Mongolia’s traditional music had all but disappeared during China’s recent tumultuous past. But today AnDa Union preserves the essence of Mongolian music — while forging a new genre — by combining styles from throughout Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China, and the independent country of Mongolia. The band’s ethnically diverse musicians draw their sound from all the tribes unified by Genghis Khan. “Most of the band members have been playing together since childhood,” notes group leader Narisu. The band’s instruments include the morin khuur (horse head fiddle), the maodun chaoer (three-holed flute), and Mongolian versions of the lute and mouth harp.
The 2011 national tour of AnDa Union is part of a major, multi-year cultural exchange with Minneapolis-based Arts Midwest, the Chinese Ministry of Culture, and the United States Major University Presenters consortium. Support for the tour has been provided by the Ministry of Culture, People’s Republic of China.
This performance is made possible, in part, with support from the Penn State Confucius Institute.
See the film AnDa Union: From the Steppes to the City at 2 p.m. Sunday, October 23, at the State Theatre in downtown State College. Tickets for the film, available at the State Theatre box office, are $5 each. Show your ticket for AnDa Union’s Eisenhower performance and get $2 off the price of a ticket to the film.
AnDa Union documentary maker speaks October 24
Tim Pearce, a music, theatre, and film producer/director who works with international performing arts groups, gives a free public lecture at 6 p.m. Monday, October 24, in the Stuckeman Family Building Jury Space on the University Park campus. Pearce produced and directed AnDa Union: From the Steppes to the City. As part of his lecture, he’ll show and discuss excerpts from the film.
