Tenzin Choegyal

Website: Tenzin Choegyal

Festival regular Tenzin Choegyal draws on his traditional Tibetan roots to create music which expresses his thoroughly modern life. Since his world music debut in 1997 in Australia, Tenzin’s cantering rhythms, soaring vocals and flute have enchanted audiences around the globe.
In the recent years Tenzin has worked with numerous prominent Australian musicians from many different genres: Michael Askill, Shen Flindell, Spiros Rantos, Ash Grunwald, Paul Coppen, Stringmansassy, Oscar and Marigold, Riley Lee, James Coats , Tsering Dorjee Bawa, Baattar Sukh, Cathedral Band, Marchelo Milani and Monks of Tibet allow Tenzin room to experiment with rhythm and structure, to challenge deeply entrenched Tibetan musical norms and find a place in the complex tapestry of global sounds. Tenzin plays the dranyen (long necked lute), lingbu (transverse flutes) various ritual objects and is well-known for his extraordinary vocal ability.

As a child, Tenzin would listen to his mother singing in the nomadic style and he attributes much of his passion for that genre to these early influences. Tenzin feels a particular connection to the music of the wandering people of his homeland. He worked the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in India over a period of five years in the mid 1990s where he received trainings mainly from his brother Tsering Dorjee Bawa who is a Tibetan music and dance instructor and Gen Gonpo la. Tenzin finished his high school from Tibetan Children’s Village (Dharamsala India) school and BA in English and Indian history in Gov College for boys in Chandigarh. Since coming to Australia, Tenzin has made his mark on the world music circuit performing at such events as Woodford Folk Festival, Port Fairy Folk Festival, the National Folk Festival and Womadelaide.