Nomadic chant

Anda Union will start its national tour after its two-month tour in the United States. The band includes Biligbaatar (above), Saikhannakhaa, Nars and Urgen. Photos provided to China Daily

The Chinese band Anda Union tours the United States with sounds of the Mongolian grasslands, Chen Nan reports.

The Chinese band Anda Union gave its first performance of the year at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York ahead of Spring Festival on Feb 6.

The members sang old folk songs of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, where they come from, and played indigenous instruments like the morin khuur (horse-head fiddle).

They also performed traditional khoomei, or throat-singing.

The concert kicked off the band's two-month tour of the United States.

"We are both singing and holding workshops to teach the audience how to play our instruments and the techniques of khoomei," Nars, the band's lead musician, says about the just-concluded tour.

In 2007, the nine-member ensemble toured the US for the first time as part of a collaboration between Arts Midwest, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit, and China's Ministry of Culture.