Musicport Festival to present pre-Festival Concert by Tashi Lhunpo Monks

World Music festival Musicport 2013 will present a performance on Friday, October 11th, in advance of the festival, by the Tashi Lhunpo Monks from Tibet. The ensemble will demonstrate the Buddhist ritual chants and dancing in stunning costumes.

The free concert will be at St Ninian’s Church, Baxtergate, Whitby. The performance starts at 7:30 pm.

Founded in Shigatse, central Tibet, by the First Dalai Lama in 1447, Tashi Lhunpo Monastery was famous for 500 years for its scholarship in Mahayana philosophy and the Tantric tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Following the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959 and the Cultural Revolution, the Monastery lost many of its valued scriptures & statues and of the 6,000 monks in the Monastery, only a handful were able to follow the Dalai Lama into exile.

In 1972, under the patronage of the present Dalai Lama, Tashi Lhunpo Monastery was re-established in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. Occupying a central position in the Tibetan settlement of Bylakuppe, the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery is now home to over 300 monks, and has once again regained its reputation as an important center for learning and for the preservation of the culture and traditions of Tibetan Buddhism.

Discography available: Wisdom & Insight, Dawn Till Dusk, and Time of The Skeleton Lords