Tibetan Monks Perform at SUNY New Paltz: “Sacred Music Sacred Dance for World Healing”

NEW PALTZ – The famed multiphonic singers of Tibet’s Drepung Loseling Monastery, whose sellout performances in Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center received national acclaim, will perform “Sacred Music Sacred Dance for World Healing” at SUNY New Paltz in conjunction with The Dorsky Museum exhibition, Anonymous: Contemporary Tibetan Art as part of their international tour of The Mystical Arts of Tibet. “Sacred Music Sacred Dance” will be performed in The Studley Theater on campus at SUNY New Paltz on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2013 at 7 pm. Tickets are available online at newpaltz.edu/museum and in the museum gallery during regular hours; $20 general admission, $15 faculty/staff, member, senior, $5 student.

The Mystical Arts of Tibet tour is co-produced by Richard Gere Productions and Drepung Loseling Institute, the North American Seat of Drepung Loseling Monastery, India. Endorsed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the tour has three basic purposes: to make a contribution to world peace and healing; to generate a greater awareness of the endangered Tibetan civilization; and to raise support for the Tibetan refugee community in India. The performance features multiphonic singing, wherein the monks simultaneously intone three notes of a chord. The Drepung Loseling monks are particularly renowned for this unique singing. They also utilize traditional instruments such as 10-foot long dung-chen horns, drums, bells, cymbals, and gyaling trumpets. Rich brocade costumes and masked dances, such as the Dance of the Sacred Snow Lion, add to the exotic splendor.

The monks of Drepung Loseling have a distinguished musical history. On past tours they have performed with Kitaro, Paul Simon, Philip Glass, Eddie Brickell, Natalie Merchant, Patti Smith, the Beastie Boys, and the Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart. Two of their recordings reached the Top 10 on New Age charts: Tibetan Sacred Temple Music (Shining Star Productions) and Sacred Tibetan Chants (Music and Arts Program of America, Inc.). Their most recent recording, Compassion (Milennia Music), pairs them with the Abbey of Gethsemani Schola in an encounter of Gregorian chant with Tibetan multiphonic singing.

Their music was featured on the Golden Globe-nominated soundtrack of the film Seven Years in Tibet, starring Brad Pitt (Columbia Pictures) and they performed with Philip Glass in Lincoln Center in the live presentation of his award-winning score to the Martin Scorsese film Kundun (Disney).

About the Exhibition

Anonymous is an exhibition of contemporary Tibetan art featuring over 50 works of painting, sculpture, installation, and video art by 27 artists living in Tibet and in diaspora. Realized by guest curator Rachel Perera Weingeist, Senior Advisor to the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, the exhibition is largely drawn from the Rubins’ private collection. Many works will be on view to the public for the first time, some made exclusively for the exhibition. Beginning July 20, the show will be open through Dec. 15.

About the Museum

The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, located at SUNY New Paltz, is fast gaining wide recognition as the premier public showplace for exhibition, education, and cultural scholarship about the Hudson Valley region’s art and artists from yesterday and today. With more than 9,000 square feet of exhibition space distributed over six galleries, the Dorsky Museum is one of the largest museums within the SUNY system. The Dorsky was officially dedicated on Oct. 20, 2001. Since then it has presented over one hundred exhibitions, including commissions, collection-based projects, and in-depth studies of artists including Robert Morris, Alice Neel, Judy Pfaff, and Carolee Schneemann.

For more information about The Dorsky Museum and its programs, visit
http://www.newpaltz.edu/museum, or call (845) 257-3844.