– shamanic and throat singing of Tuva
Considered as one of the most exceptional voices of our time. She grew up in an isolated village on the Tuvan–Mongolian border, exposed to the local overtone singing, something that was generally reserved for men. She studied overtone singing as well as the shamanic tradition of the region. Her singing, besides traditional performance, encompasses avant-jazz, electronica, and modern composition, rendering her culture known to a very wide public. Tuva is the junction of several cultures: Turkic, Mongolic, Uyghur, Central Asia, Siberian nomads, Russian orthodox, people deported from Ukraine and Tatarstan, and other nationalities from the Western side of the Ural mountains. All these traditions influenced the art of Sainkho, which nevertheless is dominated by Siberian elements. She learned the majority of the traditional repertoire from her grandmother, who sang lullabies to her for hours. In her culture, people sing whenever they want: when they are happy and when they are sad. With no opportunity to learn traditional singing at the local school, where music classes were reserved for boys, she moved to Moscow where she learned different techniques of improvisation and continued her studies of the vocal techniques in the Siberian Lama and shamanic traditions. After graduation, she returned to Tuva where she joined Sayani, the state folklore ensemble. Later, she moved to Moscow again, joining the Tri-O ensemble. She made her debut in the West in 1990, and made her first recording for Crammed Disc, titled Out of Tuva. Since the collapse of the USSR she has resided in Vienna.