The warm, nasal tones of the duduk played by Djivan Gasparayan has enchanted us for years. Armenia’s most famous musician is a living legend, whose reputation has reached Hollywood, where he has created the sound- tracks for The Crow, The Siege, The Russia House, for the films of Atom Egoyan and many others. He has won prizes, in- cluding UNESCO awards
Long songs (where the voice covers a very wide register in a single breath), short songs (very lively in expression), Khoomii diphonic singing (where the performer sings at least two notes at the sam time) and the emblematic morin khuur «horse heads» fiddle: remarkable forms of artistic expression, at times stupefying, from a culture with nomadic roots where references to breathing, nature and the open spaces remain a well-spring at the heart of music.