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The profile · researched 16 October 2026
Four voices from the Alash valley, and a church-hall circuit that keeps renewing itself
Alash have been carrying Tuvan khöömei around the United States since 2006, and in the autumn of 2026 they are deep in another coast-to-coast run of small halls — a year on from reuniting with Béla Fleck's Flecktones for the holiday album they helped win a Grammy.
Discovered at four, trained at Kyzyl
Alash came together in 1999 among students at the Kyzyl Arts College in Tuva, the small republic on Russia's border with Mongolia. They began under the name Changy-Xaya before taking Alash, after the river that runs through the region the musicians come from, and became the college's resident traditional ensemble.
The group's leading voice, Bady-Dorzhu Ondar, was born in 1984 in the village of Iyme and picked out at the age of four by Kongar-ool Ondar, the singer who taught most of his generation. He went on to degrees from Kyzyl Arts College and the East Siberia State Academy of Culture and Art, in conducting. He was named best soloist at the All-Russian Festival of traditional ensembles in 2005, won the Maxim Dakpai xöömei competition in 2006, and in 2007 became the youngest person made People's Xöömeizhi of the Republic of Tuva. He took the grand prize for throat singing at the 2008 Xöömei Symposium and was made a Distinguished Artist of the Republic of Tuva in 2019. He now directs the International Khöömei Academy in Kyzyl.
The ensemble itself took first prize at the International Xöömei Symposium competition in 2004 and performed for Vladimir Putin in August 2007. Their first American tour came in 2006, and they have returned annually since, alongside dates across Europe and Asia.
What the technique actually does
Khöömei is not one sound but a family of them. The singer holds a low drone and shapes the mouth so that two or three harmonics above it can be heard as separate pitches, which is why the standard description — one person singing a chord — is literal rather than figurative. Sygyt pushes the upper partial into something close to a flute or a whistle; kargyraa drops into a sub-bass growl, and kargyraa is Bady-Dorzhu Ondar's speciality.
The instruments do as much work as the voices. Bady-Dorzhu Ondar plays igil, the two-stringed horse-head fiddle held like a cello, plus guitar and bayan. Ayan-ool Sam plays doshpuluur, the three-stringed lute often likened to a banjo, along with igil and the xomus jaw harp. Ayan Shirizhik handles the kengirge frame drum, the shoor flute, xomus and shyngyrash bells. Kang-Khüler Saaia plays the upright byzaanchy fiddle and the chadagan zither.
Other objects come out as the set goes on: duyuglar, a pair of horse hooves clapped to imitate a gallop; xapchyk, a rattle made from a dried bull scrotum filled with sheep knucklebones; and amyrga, a gut-wrapped wooden tube used to mimic the mating call of a red deer. Ethnomusicologists tie the whole repertoire to an older animist listening habit — imitation of rivers, wind and animals rather than composition about them.
The records
The discography is small and deliberate. A concert document, Alash Live at the Enchanted Garden, appeared in 2006, followed by the studio album Alash in 2007, whose sleeve carried translations and notes on Tuvan culture for listeners meeting the music cold.
Buura, in 2011, gave each member a solo and brought in Victor Wooten on bass guitar for the title track. Achai followed in 2015 and was reissued by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in 2017; its title means father, and it is dedicated to fathers generally and to Kongar-ool Ondar in particular, with the Baltimore beatboxer Shodekeh as guest. Meni Mana arrived in 2020 as a digital-only release produced by Shamil Gainetdinov, with studio effects layered over the traditional base.
The most recent record under the group's own banner is Embodiments, released on Ear Up Records in 2022 — Bady-Dorzhu Ondar with Shodekeh and a set of American hip-hop musicians, recorded live in Baltimore. Separately, the ensemble's guest turn on Béla Fleck and the Flecktones' Jingle All the Way, released in 2008, won a Grammy for best pop instrumental album, confirmed in February 2009.
The jazz and hip-hop side door
Alash's second career is as guests. They toured with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones through 2008 and 2009 after the holiday record, and have also shared stages with the Sun Ra Arkestra. The pairing with Rahzel, the beatboxer from The Roots, has become a recurring bill: he appeared as special guest on their 2025 American dates, including Edmonds Center for the Arts near Seattle, where a review of the show noted his solo turn on "If Mother Only Knew" drawing the loudest response of the night.
The Flecktones connection came back round in 2025. In mid-July the band announced a Jingle All the Way tour with the original line-up of Béla Fleck, Howard Levy, Victor Wooten and Roy "Futureman" Wooten, plus the returning saxophonist Jeff Coffin and Alash — the first time everyone from the 2008 album had stood on a stage together. It opened with two nights at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on 26 and 28 November 2025, took in the Salt Shed in Chicago and the Beacon Theatre in New York, and closed at the Joy Theater in New Orleans on 20 December 2025.
That exposure matters commercially, but it has not changed the shape of their own touring, which remains small rooms booked one at a time.
Where they stand in October 2026
The group now runs its own festival at home. Alash Fest took place on 5 and 6 July 2025 at the Turan maral farm in Tuva, organised by the ensemble with backing from the republic's head, Vladislav Khovalyg. The bill drew in Huun-Huur-Tu, Chirgilchin, Tyva-Kyzy and Oduchu alongside the Tuvan National Orchestra, plus acts from Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Buryatia, Yakutia, Moscow and St Petersburg. Two-day admission was 1,500 roubles, with tent pitches at 500.
Their 2026 has been busy in the States. Spring brought a run through The Local in Saugerties on 15 March, the Coconino Center for the Arts in Flagstaff on 17 March, Freight & Salvage in Berkeley on 20 March and The Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis on 16 April — their seventh appearance there. Summer added Richmond, Virginia on 15 July and the Towne Crier Cafe in Beacon on 24 July.
The autumn tour is running now. It took in the First Unitarian Church in Shadyside, Pittsburgh on 15 October, and the published schedule continues through Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, the Golden Drum in Brooklyn, Pickman Hall at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, The Word Barn in Exeter, New Hampshire and back to Saugerties on 24 October, before dropping south to Florida State University, Duluth in Georgia, Gasa Gasa in New Orleans on 1 November and two college halls in Tennessee and South Carolina, finishing at North Greenville University on 6 November. One date, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on 25 October, has been cancelled.
The show itself
These are acoustic concerts in churches, listening rooms and college recital halls, usually with the four musicians seated and swapping instruments between pieces, and with the group's long-serving manager and interpreter Sean Quirk translating song introductions and explaining what each object on the floor is for. Workshops are often attached: the March 2026 Saugerties date was preceded by a throat-singing class.
The set draws on the traditional repertoire rather than the records. The 2025 Edmonds concert opened with "Ene-sai", a slow and reverent piece, and worked through "Kosh-oi and Torgalyg", an ode to two rivers, "Odarladyp Semirtiili" and "The Reindeer Herder's Song", with spoken demonstrations of how khöömei is produced before the singers used it in context.
Reviewers have consistently been struck less by novelty than by control. The Washington Post, writing in June 2007, called the music utterly stunning and reported that the audience picked their jaws up off the floor; a Denver Post critic covering the Flecktones tour wrote that the headliners were nearly upstaged by the Tuvan quartet; Songlines described the singing as moving from frightening growls to otherworldly overtone whistles. The common note is that the vocal technique would be a curiosity without the instrumental playing and tuning underneath it, and that Alash have both.
The show, now
Alash are mid-way through an American autumn run that began in October 2026 and ends at North Greenville University in Tigerville, South Carolina on 6 November. The rooms are small and mostly acoustic — First Unitarian Church in Shadyside, Pittsburgh on 15 October at 8pm, with tickets sold through Humanitix and over the counter at five Pittsburgh record shops; Pickman Hall at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge on 22 October; Gasa Gasa in New Orleans on 1 November. Evenings run long for the format: the April 2026 date at The Cedar in Minneapolis, their seventh there, had doors at 7pm, music from 7.30 to 10.30, $30 general admission, all ages and seated first-come-first-served. The four musicians play seated and rotate through igil, doshpuluur, byzaanchy, chadagan, kengirge, shoor, xomus and a handful of percussion objects — horse hooves, a bull-scrotum rattle, a deer-call pipe — with Sean Quirk interpreting the introductions and explaining the technique before it is used. Sets lean on the traditional repertoire rather than the albums, opening slow ("Ene-sai" in 2025) and taking in river songs and herding songs, with demonstrations of khöömei, sygyt and kargyraa between pieces. Workshops are frequently attached to the ticket, as at Saugerties in March 2026. No support acts are listed on the autumn 2026 dates; when Alash share a bill it tends to be with the beatboxer Rahzel, as on their 2025 dates, or with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, whose Jingle All the Way reunion tour they joined from the Ryman in Nashville on 26 November 2025 to the Joy Theater in New Orleans on 20 December. One date on the current run, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on 25 October, has been cancelled.
Researched from en.wikipedia.org · alashensemble.com · alashensemble.com · alashensemble.com · alashensemble.com · alashensemble.com · alashensemble.com · chronogram.com
Pictures
Photographs from Wikimedia Commons, credited
Johanna Kovitz · CC BY-SA 3.0
Stewpub · CC BY-SA 4.0
