Yungchen Lhamo

dublin | arts and media | event notice Friday July 15, 2005 11:26 by Mary Hickson - OReillyTheatre & Tibet Ireland manager at oreillytheatre dot com OReillyTheatre, Belvedere College, Great Denmark Street, Dublin 1 01 858 6644

The voice of Tibet

THIS SUNDAY
Yungchen Lhamo
The Voice of Tibet
OReillyTheatre July 17th 8pm

OReillyTheatre, Belvedere College, Great Denmark Street, Dublin 1
Tickets: €24/18
Booking: 01 872 1122

THIS SUNDAY
Yungchen Lhamo
The Voice of Tibet
OReillyTheatre July 17th 8pm

Yungchen Lhamo, Tibet’s internationally acclaimed diva and songwriter, will be making a return visit to Ireland in July 2005. In concert, Yungchen performs a cappella and her beautifully evocative voice never fails to mesmerise her audiences – as those who attended her concerts in Limerick and Dublin last November can testify. Born in Lhasa, her name was given to her when she was a baby by a Tibetan lama and translates as ‘Goddess of Song’ (or Melody). At the age of five Yungchen was sent with her family to a labour camp by the occupying Chinese authorities; her two eldest brothers died of malnutrition. She was brought up, and taught to sing, by her maternal grandmother, aunt and mother. At 13 years old, she had to begin working in a factory for a 60-hour week.In 1989 she escaped from Tibet by walking the dangerous 1,000-mile journey across the Himalayas to reach Dharamsala, India, where she was encouraged to use her vocal talents by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and continued singing with the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts. She later moved to Australia, where in 1995 she first performed with WOMAD (World of Music Arts and Dance) and produced her first CD, ‘Tibetan Prayer’, which was released through Natural Symphonies and won the Australian Recording Industry Award for Best World/Folk/Traditional Album. Two more critically acclaimed albums, ‘Tibet, Tibet’ (1996), and ‘Coming Home’ (1998), have been released by Peter Gabriel’s Real World label. In September 2005, Real World will release her much-awaited fourth album, ‘Ma’ (‘Ah-ma’ is Tibetan for ‘Mother’), on which Annie Lennox and Joy Askew make guest appearances. Yungchen’s music also appeared on Natalie Merchant’s platinum-selling ‘Ophelia’, the compilation release ‘Lilith Fair: A Celebration of Women in Music’, and on the soundtrack of Brad Pitt’s movie, ‘Seven Years in Tibet’. She now lives in New York.
OReillyTheatre, Belvedere College, Great Denmark Street, Dublin 1
Tickets: €24/18
Booking: 01 872 1122

Yungchen Lhamo Charitable Foundation
The Dublin event, which is supported by Tibet Support Group-Ireland (Whitepark, Arklow, Co Wicklow, E-mail: tibetire@indigo.ie), will be a benefit concert in aid of the New York-based Yungchen Lhamo Charitable Foundation (Tax ID: EIN 20-0717410).
This was founded by Yungchen to assist Tibetan refugees around the world in need of food, clothing and medical care, and to enlighten the global community about Tibetan culture and the challenges faced by Tibetans in Tibet and worldwide. This year’s projects are a hostel for Tibetan women refugees and the provision of artificial limbs and shoes for children who cannot afford them – about 3,000 Tibetans attempt to escape occupied Tibet across the Himalayas every year via Nepal to India, but not all survive and some lose fingers, hands or arms, toes, feet or legs, from frostbite.

Your financial support can be sent to:
Yungchen Lhamo Charitable Foundation
PO Box 4262, Sunnyside, NY 11104-0262, New York, USA