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	Music of Bhutan Bhutanese music info and reviews

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As one of the smaller and more obscure countries of the Himalayas, Bhutan has created a musical landscape that borrows heavily from neighboring Tibet and Nepal, while also reflecting the musical heritage of the many separate ethnic groups that are united under the Bhutanese flag.

While traditional Bhutanese folk music has its own unique styles and instruments, the famous Drukpa order of Buddhism uses the religious music of Tibet as its main influence, and has in the process become famous in its own right.

Both religious and secular traditional music in Bhutan is being crushed under the weight of the younger generation, who prefer the sounds of rigsar music, a bouncy confection based on Western pop music. It is left to seldom-recorded monks and folk enthusiasts like Jigme Drukpa to keep the past from disappearing forever.

Bhutanese Music Info

Jigme Drukpa

Internationally known musicologist and folk musician Jigme Drukpa is perhaps the Bhutanese artist most readily available to international ears. As a scholar, divining the sounds and instruments of traditional Bhutanese folk music, he is... [more]

Traditional Bhutanese Folk Music

Modern Bhutan's history goes back to the early 1600's, when Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal united several fiefdoms in the area near present-day northeast India. It was soon after this that Bhutanese folk music developed. Heavily... [more]