Reshi Tsering Tan

Reshi Tsering Tan

Reshi Tsering Tan(often shortened as Tsering，Chinese:热西·才让·旦, Pinyin:Rexi·Cairang·Dan, Tibetan: རུ་ཤུལ་ཚེ་རིང་བརྟན།), is a Tibetan artist and social entrepreneur from China. He is a dedicated scholar-practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism and often apply Buddhism philosophy, text and practice in his music and performance.

Tsering Tan is the founder and President of Shangri-La Folk Music Preservation Association, a non-profit organization based in Yunnan Province and Beijing, China, dedicated to protecting endangered traditional Tibetan music.

Early life

Tsering Tan was born and grew up in a shepherd’s tribe on the prairie of Maqu County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, China.

Social Entrepreneurship

In 2002, Tsering Tan started visiting folk/traditional artists in villages in Himalaya region by himself and collecting folk songs by recording them. However, lack of fund and reliable recording equipment and audio storage methods make things extremely difficult. Large amount of audio collected from those arduous trips were damaged. And when Tsering tried to visit same artists again, most of them passed away. Then he realized that most traditional artists who learned traditional music by word of mouth are about 70 to 90 years old and they are the only group of people who know about specific genres, songs and choreographies and other cultural elements attached to it. Their later generations don’t even speak their dialect, let alone knowing about the songs, lyrics and stories behind. Therefore, with help from friends, Tsering Tan founded Shangri-La Folk Music Preservation Association in 2008, in order to preserve and protect endangered traditional music and culture heritage.

Music Career

Tsering had vocal training in Lanzhou Northwest Nationalities University and Central University of Nationalities. But he dropped out of both schools to trace his roots, explore the spirit and history of the ethnic group and culture he belongs to and formulate his own way of singing and creating music. His debut album “Shangri-La” was released in 2007. Not only received numerous praise from music critics, the album also had large audience—it was played more than 289,255 times on the most popular music stream service in mainland China and sold almost one million copies.

Reshi Tsering Tan's unique music style and his outstanding contributions in Tibetan culture preservation has been the focus of both national and international media attention, such as National Geographic Magazine, Phoenix TV, the Travel Channel, and China Youth Daily among others.

Discography

• Shangri-La (2007)
• The Snow Lotus (2014)

References

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