The rock group Roksonaki (led by Ruslan Karin), who were extremely popular at the Smithsonian Folklife festival in Washington DC in 2002.
Roksonaki’s performance at the Washington festival was unanimously recognized as a sensation, and it gave rise to a loyal and literally obsessed group of fans who are to this day patiently awaiting the next tour of this talented group from Almaty. The group’s repertoire consists of works by Ruslan Karin, the winner of the first international “Aziya Dauysy” (“Voice of Asia”) competition, whose unique voice is not drowned out by the increasingly noisy and aggressive torrent of ethno- (or folk) rock. Shamanistic, epic, and ritual texts from Kazakh folklore form the basis of Karin’s compositions; they are read by the young musician and incorporated into the contemporary cultural context.
Roksonaki is an experiment in generating an ethnic voice in a context radically new for it. What is noteworthy about this experiment is not just the phenomenon of the voice but also the level of the poetry. It is as if Ruslan Karin’s compositions, on account of the philosophical depth he achieves in them by “reading” traditional poetics anew, have the power to electrify the poetic thinking of his modern listeners. In essence, Karin is returning tradition to young people, reintoning it in the style of forward-looking rock. His rock-termes, resounding powerfully like a caravan of musicians, seemed almost to hang over the festival square, a space so enormous it could not be taken in at a single glance.
For this very trip they prepared a new repertoire.
