Tibetan Music

Tibetan music covers the sacred and secular traditions of the Tibetan plateau and the Himalayan diaspora. Its core is Buddhist ritual practice: monastic chant in deep, overtone-rich voices, performed with long dungchen horns, shawms, conch shells, cymbals and hand drums to accompany ceremony and meditation. Alongside it stand court and folk repertories of song and dance, the bardic epics of Gesar, and the exile-era recordings of singers such as *Yungchen Lhamo*, who carried unaccompanied Tibetan song to international audiences. Much of the tradition was suppressed inside Tibet after 1959 and preserved by refugee communities.