BY PETER THOMPSON
The mystical sounds and stories from the land of Tibet are coming to the Brewery Arts Center 7 p.m. Wednesday.
Following a special Tuesday “Election Day meditation” on “peace and wisdom for ourselves, our nation, and the world” at Bliss Mansion, musician Tenzing Tsewang and his friend Lobsang Samten will take the audience on a cultural and spiritual journey to the cloud-shrouded Himalayas, haunting the highest, dispossessed peaks of the imagination with the music and folk tales of their native land.
Though they came from distinctly different social backgrounds, both were forced to flee their homeland with the invasion of the People’s Republic of China.
Tenzing and the rest of his nomadic village walked over mountain passes to Nepal, where they were met with disease and suffering in the Katmandu refugee camps.
Lobsang escaped to India in 1959, and in 1985, earned the degree of master of Buddhist Sutra and Tantra studies at Namgyal Monastery in Dharamsala, India, the monastery of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Lobsang also served for a time as a personal assistant to the exiled spiritual leader.
Tenzing’s music is a mix of spiritual, cultural and mythical Tibetan folk songs with traditional chanting and a contemporary awareness. He performs on bamboo flute, clay flute, Tibetan guitar, drums and cymbals.
Lobsang is the founder and spiritual director of the Tibetan Buddhist Centers of Philadelphia and El Paso. He is the first Tibetan Buddhist monk to have demonstrated the creation of Tibetan sand mandalas in the West, painstaking, imaginary palaces created during meditation.
Their performance is a benefit for arts programs in Tibetan schools.
