The city of Almaty is one of the biggest and most populated in Central Asia. Although it was replaced as the capital of Kazakhstan by Astana (now Nur-Sultan) in 1998, it’s still considered to be the centre of culture in the country. And one of Almaty’s most important cultural events is a world music festival – the Spirit of Tengri. Not bad for an event that started just seven years ago.
When the Spirit of Tengri festival first began in 2013, its goal was to explore the uniqueness of the many Central Asian musical traditions by getting to the to the heart of what makes them special – they all evolved as a response to a nomadic way of life. The Kazakh people, and many other ethnic groups in the region, were originally Turkic nomads who developed their own sounds and styles through meetings and meldings with those whose traditions are different. The Spirit of Tengri was first conceived as a gathering of the nomadic people from across Eurasia, from the Magyars of Hungary to the Tuvans of Siberia and the Mongols further east. The festival continues these cultures’ age-old tradition of a mutual meeting of song and dance.
Since that first edition, the festival has become much more than the organisers ever hoped. General producer Zhan Kasteev recalls the moment he knew the Spirit of Tengri had the opportunity to take the next step onto the world stage: “It was a surprise when we visited WOMEX two years after the first festival, and people already knew of us. They knew us as one of the biggest nomadic festivals… because there’s not many like this in the world! Usually nomadic cultures are represented by Mongolian people and culture and songs, but the Turkic culture is diverse, it has many different subcultures – not just nomadic ones, either. On the third or fourth year we started inviting artists from every continent, but the main focus remains on nomadic bands.”
The festival itself takes place on Abai Square, where one huge stage is erected alongside similarly colossal screens, sound system and lighting rig, which turn each evening into super-glossy affair that rivals Eurovision but with better music – and free entry, too. The buzz of the crowd tells you how highly anticipated the Spirit of Tengri is, and each artist is guaranteed a rapturous reception regardless of who they are or where they’re from. This atmosphere creates a heady feedback loop. Kasteev thinks this is a vital part of the festival’s draw: “The audience have been waiting for a whole year for the festival. It’s a family festival, there’s different ages from little kids to old guys. It doesn’t matter about their other problems, they just come here to get this energy. We have 25,000 attendees and it’s getting bigger every year.”
The event’s name refers to the ancient religion of Tengrism, a shamanic belief that once united the Turkic, Mongol and Magyar nomads across Eurasia until the 13th century, and is still practiced today. But the festival isn’t content with looking to the past. The Spirit of Tengri’s artists rarely play full-on traditional music. The tagline is ‘a festival of contemporary ethnic music,’ and every artist performs some kind of hybrid style. No matter which culture they’re representing, they keep the traditional music at the centre while rearranging it around other contemporary styles, from rock to jazz to Latin to the cheesiest Euro-pop. Combined with the artists’ global influences, it’s a range that means there is always something for everyone.
Even aside from the musical styles, the programme of Spirit of Tengri is rather intriguing as its organisers take an unusual approach. While most music festivals base their line-ups on presenting something new to their audience, with perhaps one or two fan favourites, the Spirit of Tengri does almost the exact opposite: the line-up is very similar each year. Many of the groups that take the stage know the festival well, and come back as often as they can, sometimes every year. New artists are invited to the fold along the way, but for the festival’s organisers (and audience), this consistency is one of its strongest points. “The main thing about the festival is that friendship with the artists is valued first; business is second,” says Kasteev. “We try to invite our friends as much as we can. The bands that come each year are our really good friends.”
It’s a philosophy that extends beyond the stage. Whereas the audience experiences the festival as two days of open-air fun, for the artists, the festival is three days. The day after the public event, all the performers bundle onto a bus and journey into the Zailyisky Alatau mountains that surround Almaty. A large restaurant becomes the venue for a day of mingling and jamming, an epic intercultural free-for-all in which musical ideas are flung together and flourish into something completely different. Horse-meat beshbarmak is in plentiful supply, as is the wine. This is a time that might see Egyptian arghoul double clarinet and Tuareg guitar meeting under Tuvan khöömei throat singing, or a percussion-off between Azeri naghara, Uzbek doira, congas and drum kit (with some Mozambican bass in there for good measure). This isn’t just an exercise in throwing a good party, though – its effects are in evidence in future editions of the festival. The collaborations created at these gatherings are solidified over the coming years, where returning artists beckon their new friends onto the Tengri stage to show off their border-breaking musical explorations together, forming the basis of long-lasting musical and personal relationships.
This essential essence of collaboration brings the festival full-circle. The roots of the music at the Spirit of Tengri are in the nomadic way of life, where art and traditions were shared between peoples along the road. The festival is just like one of those ancient crossroads, where musicians and audiences from different cultures get to meet and share and create anew, building on traditions from every corner of the world in some of the most unexpected – and delightful – ways.