ROUTES NOMADES
With ten years of research (2003-2013), tens years of Routes Nomades (2006-2016) and more than ten years of travelling between France and Mongolia behind him, Johanni Curtet’s aim is to understand, learn and spread awareness of khöömii (overtone singing), and Mongolian musical and vocal culture in general, further afield. Since 2003 this musician and ethnomusicologist has met and recorded several hundred Mongolian singers over the course of his ten visits to Mongolia. Since 2006, Routes Nomades, his association, has produced and organised more than 70 concerts of Mongolian overtone singing, in addition to approximately thirty workshops. It has also coproduced two albums with these great masters on the Buda Musique (coll. Musique du Monde) and Pan Records (coll. Ethnic series) labels. The multi award-wining documentary film ‘Masters of overtone singing’ by J.F. Castell (2010) captures some of these adventures and experiences.
A double album, Anthology of Mongolian Khöömii, was released on the Buda Music label in January 2016, within the famous ‘Musique du monde’ collection, to mark Mongolian khöömii’s registration on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2010 and the important 10th anniversary of Routes Nomades. This album serves as a tribute to Mongolian musicians, a tool of transmission and a reference document. The unique and original collection brings together, for the first time, sound archives, field recordings and recent commercial productions, resulting in an all-encompassing look at the practice of khöömii, from the first recordings until today.
To celebrate this event, Routes Nomades organised a unique tour with some of the anthology’s musicians. The aim of this album, in addition to the tour, which stands out as an original event that promotes the UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, is to showcase Mongolian khöömii in all its contemporary forms. It also allows for wider participation in the transmission of this tradition, preserved by the Mongolian people.
This tour passes through Geneva. The three nights programmed by the ADEM at the Alhambra are as true to the spirit of the anthology of khöömii as possible, for they present tradition, transmission, diversity, discovery and contemporary practices.
