Monks Bring Mystic Music To The Met

The monks of Drepung Loseling Monastery waited 573 years for their first hit record.

The Drepung Loseling Monastery was founded in 1416 in Tibet for the purpose of collecting and transmitting the ancient Buddhist arts and sciences. It was destroyed by the Chinese in 1959 and all but 250 of its monks were either killed or imprisoned.

Those who survived the Chinese invasion of Tibet fled to India, where they established a replica of the original monastery. Today, about 2,500 monks live there, working to preserve the secret culture of Drepung Loseling.

In 1989, eight Drepung Loseling monks received permission from the Dali Lama to expose their music to the rest of the world and raise money for their impoverished monastery. It was on that tour that they recorded “Tibetan Sacred Temple Music,” which hung in on the Top 25 of the New Age charts for a year and hit No. 1 in Canada on the same chart.

No conventional record, it featured the sounds of 10-foot trumpets, an assortment of ancient drums, bells and cymbals and the bizarre, multiphonic vocals that are the hallmark of sacred Tibetan music.

The monks of Drepung Loseling will return to Spokane Tuesday for an 8 p.m. concert at The Met. Their performance is titled “Sacred Music and Sacred Dance for World Healing” and will feature the ritual music of Tibet.

Traditionally, whenever a monastery celebrated a spiritual festival, nomads and villagers from the surrounding area would gather for three or four days of performances. Each piece of music and dance was inspired by a mystical visionary experience of a great sage or saint, and each was transmitted through the generations in an oral legacy.

In the West, the music is best known for the multi-toned vocals, which sound so alien to ears accustomed to single tones. The Tibetans are the world’s only culture to practice this “overtone singing,” in which the chant masters train the muscles of the vocal cavity to produce three tones from a single sung note.

In the colorful program, the performers wear traditional robes and headdresses and a narrator explains the purpose and function of each of the 12 numbers.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CONCERT The monks of Drepung Loseling Monastery will perform at 8 p.m. Tuesday at The Met. Tickets are $15, available at Street Music, Global Folk Art and G&B Select-a-Seat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT.