WASHINGTON, August 5 (RIA Novosti) – Kongar-ol Ondar, an internationally-acclaimed throat singer from the Russian republic of Tuva, with a rare ability to produce two notes or more at the same time, has died in the Tuva region just north of Mongolia, the New York Times reported.
After a difficult childhood and four-year stint in a Siberian penal colony, reportedly for a crime he did not commit, Ondar returned to singing, eventually performing for all three Russian presidents since the fall of the Soviet Union: Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev.
He rose to global prominence in the 1990s when he started recording and performing internationally, and jammed with preeminent performers like musician/composer Frank Zappa, country singer Willie Nelson and the Kronos Quartet.
In the United States Ondar performed at the kind of places many American artists only dream of: the Kennedy Center in Washington; the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee; three Rose Parades in Pasadena, California; and carried the Olympic Torch for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, according to his August 3 obituary.
A longtime friend said Ondar died July 25 in Kyzyl, Tuva’s capital, from complications after emergency surgery for a brain hemorrhage, the Times said. He was 51.
