Geshe Thubten Tashi (solo voice)
Monks of the Kopan Monastery
Monks of the Ka-Nying Shedrup Ling Monastery
Monks and lay people at the Great Stupa of Boudhanath
Anton Batagov (the idea of this composition; recording, editing, mixing, mastering)

Recorded at the Kopan and Ka-Nying Shedrup Ling monasteries and at the
Great Stupa of Boudhanath, Nepal, in November / December 2000
Edited, mixed and mastered in Moscow in December 2000 / January 2001
 

This is not a composition in the conventional sense because it contains no composed material. All one hears is authentic Tibetan prayers, ritual masked dances, the sounds of prayer wheels and bells, voices of monks, lay people, and birds. The subject of my work was form, structure, and studio processing. Why then, did I choose to build this new structure?

Let me explain. There are already numerous CD's in existence with complete recordings of services and other rituals, but they are incapable of transmitting a sense of authenticity because in order to get this feeling one would need to live in a monastery (since one's childhood if possible) and to have a life completely different from ours and to have a mind pointed differently. Without that this CD would be just another object on the ethnic music shelf, and the wall between "them" and "us" would remain where it is. The only thing I consider relevant in this recording is to realize all that I've heard and seen as my own emotional experience - otherwise it makes no sense at all. In order to express that, I therefore needed to consider the structure of the current recording. This form gave me a chance to share my experience with other people who, like myself, are living in the territories called "The West" and trying to understand how everything works, who we are, and what we are doing in this so-called life.

Anton Batagov, May 2001