Last evening, culminating the fourth day of our five day residency at the American Embassy School here in Delhi (which has been REALLY delightful), we were invited over for an evening of singing with American women teachers from the school. They have been singing together for awhile, and---wouldn't you know, they sing lots of music from Libana's recordings. One of the women had seen us perform at the Chico(CA)World Music Festival almost 15 years ago, and had bought a songbook there and brought it to this group of singers. So, here we were singing together in a (exquisitely beautiful)living room in Delhi, India. Huh.
After a sumptuous good ol' American-style pot luck (of mostly Indian food) and lots of good conversation, a Tibetan woman who lives with one of the women finally agreed to sing for us (it took a bit of coaxing her through some shyness). Once she started to sing--first folk songs then songs and dance from the deeply traditional and sacred Tibetan opera--her soul poured through her beautiful voice and all of us in that living room were mesmerized by this woman who had sung for awhile with the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in Dharamsala (where we will be in about 10 days. A conversation about Tibet and Tibetan music followed, and it made me even more excited about going to Dharamsala than I already have been!
The power of song-- connecting women from the world...
Sue
