By looking at the life, career, and music of renowned female Mongolian long song singer Norovbanzad (1937-2003), surveying vocal principles espoused by her students, and analyzing a specific piece in the long song repertory, this thesis demonstrates how concert long song typifies traditional and modern Mongolian expressive values which forefront the Mongolian landscape. Concert long song (urtiin duu), referred to as "Mongolian classical music" by long song singers, is performed by trained, professional soloists who declaim lyric texts and improvise ornate melismas in free-rhythm, often accompanied by the morin khuur, the Mongolian "horse-head" fiddle. Despite concert long song's rich history, musical complexity, and cultural significance, few scholars have completed research in English exploring concert long song's many social and musical ramifications. This thesis, therefore, makes a significant contribution to the literature by providing a study of an important, uniquely Mongolian tradition that combines historically-rooted and modernist cultural values. Research methods for this study include archival research of Mongolian and English resources, participant observation by the author in long song voice lessons, interviews with over twenty members of the long song community, field recordings of selected long songs, photographs of various long song contexts, and music/ textual transcription and analysis. Investigation ultimately reveals how Norovbanzad negotiated and embodied continuity and change within fluctuating musical and social landscapes of her time to shape a twentieth-century Mongolian concert tradition. Urtiin duu performs ideas of nuudlin soyol irgenshil or "nomadic civilization," a concept that pays homage to Mongol nomadic history and culture as well as modern concepts of nationalism. The current generation of long song singers continues to carry out the pivotal social function carved out by Norovbanzad. Concert long song technique and performance practice incorporate and transform multiple modern influences in order to serve longstanding Mongolian aesthetic values emphasizing sonic mimesis of the Mongolian landscape. Summarizing ideas on technique, performance practice, and aesthetics of concert long song, this work opens up myriad possibilities for creative research on the long song tradition and Mongolian music in general.
