Bukhu Ganburged: Mongolian throat singer and morin khuur player

Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman

Bukhu Ganberged is an incredible Mongolian-Australian musician who is a master of both the Morin Khuur, the Horsehead fiddle, and Khuumii, the Mongolian Overtone Throat Singing. This episode features a lot of special music, and Bukhu’s personal story of growing up in Mongolia and emigrating to Australia. Like all my episodes, this is available as both a video with Closed Captions, a transcript, and a podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, the link to my website: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/bukhu-ganburged

Please do consider supporting this series; every dollar helps: https://ko-fi.com/leahroseman

At the beginning of this episode Bukhu explains how he learned overtone throat singing and demonstrates different styles. You’ll then hear some incredible music on Morin Khuur, the horsehead fiddle and learn about Mongolian culture and Bukhu’s experiences in Australia where he’s gone from busking on the street to performing at the Sydney Opera House and being featured on The Voice. I have included detailed timestamps below.

I encourage you to listen to Bukhu’s albums wherever you listen to your music! ⁠https://www.horsefiddle.com/⁠

Bukhu’s audio was captured by his phone directly in Australia (I generally avoid recording over the internet) but the mic placement wasn’t ideal to capture the beautiful complexities of both the horsehead fiddle performances and Bukhu’s singing. However, he has also allowed me to also share within the episode a couple of his recordings both solo and with his group Equus, so you’ll be able to hear him explain about different regional styles of singing and playing in the episode as well as hear the studio quality recordings.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro

(02:36) khoomei Mongolian throat singing, how Bukhu learned and different styles

(14:23) some of Bukhu’s albums

(16:00) Equus

(18:00) Huurhun Haliun with Equus

(22:28) please support this independant podcast!

(22:46) Bukhu’s immigration to Australia

(26:20) Morin khuur horsehead fiddle, different regional styles

(37:55) legend of Khuhuu Namjil

(41:11) morin khuur with khoomei Mongolian throat singing “Khuhuu Namjil”

(45:06) Mongolian nomadic culture with animals, weeping camel

(49:09) khoomei Mongolian throat singing weeping camel song

(50:40) Bukhu’s childhood and training in music

(58:16) Linsey Pollak and Lizzie O’Keefe

(59:14) balancing life as a father