about

Kharnatsang is a monk from the Tibetan tradition of Yungdrung Bön, the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet. He is specially trained in the music, rituals, and sacred dances of Bön.

The one of Kharnatsang’s main aims as a monastic and spiritual musician/performer and ritual leader is to find new artistic ways of presenting the essence of the ritual music of his tradition. He recently collaborated with professional musicians and artists from the West, carrying out different projects in the area of sound art and music. One of the results is the recording of the Three Heart Mantras of Yungdrung Bön, done at Folkwang University of the Arts, Germany.

Kharnatsang’s second aim is the preservation of the musical heritage of his tradition. As one of the results of this wish, he produced a series of videos demonstrating the unique, slow chant of the Bön tradition,“gyer-yang“. The work had been done in collaboration with ICEM (Institute for Computermusic and Electronic Media, Germany) and is archived at the institute. Thus one of the main sonic cultural treasures of Tibetan Bön has been preserved.