At the initiative of the teachers of St.Croix college and France-Tibet support group in Orleans , a musical event of traditional and classical concert took place in the packed hall of the church of Ste.Croix.The concert represented a dialogue between the two cultures, the students of the college and Loten Namling, a former student of TCV school,in Dharamsala.
It all started a year back, when the students of the college decide to begin a pen-friend exchange programme with the students of TCV .Since then, there has been a regular contact between the two schools and their children. The music teacher composed a specail song for the event known as “The children of Tibet”, sung by the choir of the school.
Loten Namling on his part sang the traditional and classical songs of Tibet.His wide range of voice from the deep base to the high pitches of singing charmed the audiance.
The vice mayor of the city of Orleans Mrs.Mignoty-Gonzales, who was the special guest of the evening called his voice : ” the voice of the Blues”.
Loten is currently working with Didier Ballan, a French musician to compose new Blues songs for his project “The Tibet blues”. “Old songs of Tibet are Blues” says Loten Namling.He further adds that songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama and the songs of Milarepa are in actual sense blues.When he sings those songs he could sometimes feel them, as if in a time machine going back hundreds of years. In the western world, the blues tradition comes from the black Americans who were oppressed by their white owners. So for Loten Tibet Blues is the appropriate name for his project to express the sufferings of his people under the Chinese occupation.
Loten and Didier plans to have Tibet Blues tours in France in the near future.
As a whole the first exchange between Loten and the Orleans students was a huge and warmful success beyond words to describe. It is through their music and their message of Peace and Freedom, that they could bring the voices and souls of the two Peoples together.
