Altai again

In the summer of 2002 we recorded music in Altai, at the very southern end of Siberia. Copies of those recordings now sit in the National Sound Archive of the British Museum, at the Gorno-Altaisk Radio station archives and in my desk! While we were there we discovered that the Altaians had several 'epic' song-cycles and we recorded a few minutes of the longest - an epic called Maadai-kara. I had always wondered about this story, it's meaning, and what it would be like to listen to the whole song-cycle. The Maadai-kara as sung by Alexei Kalkin was translated into Russian in the early 1970's and I believe a recording made then can be found in the Moscow archives.

Now we intend to record this epic anew and translate it into English. If all goes to plan, we will fly out at Easter and film and record a recital of Maadai-kara in Altai. There is even a possibility it will be sung by the grandson of Alexei Kalkin.