The famous rock-musician Albert Kuvezin of the legendary group Yat-Kha, the only group in Russia which won a Grand-Prix in the annual international competition BBC Radio 3 Awards in World Music in 2002, received the title “Merited Artist of Republic Tuva”. The government award was given to the remarkable rocker at his concert in Kyzyl by the head of the republic, Sholban Kara-ool.
“Judging from the reaction of the audience, the nation was pleased,- admitted the musician later. – Nobody thought to ask what it is for. That is what I said to the Premier. – the title is getting its status back. They are not handing them out right and left. It is honorable enough to work for 25 years. And it is not mandatory to be somebody’s relative, or to cringe before the government”.
Albert Kuvezin now has several projects going. He has a 1-hour program on the Radio “Voice of Asia”. He is about to finish work on his new album, “Tao and Death”. The lyrics are English translations of post-war Japanese poetry. All the guitars and voice were recorded by the musician himself. Now it is at the stage of mixing, and producing a booklet. It should be out by this summer.
Albert now also works as sound-producer for local musicians, he helps them to record new tracks.
He also has plans to revive an old project-DVD, soundtrack to the movie of Vsevolod Pudovkin “Storm over Asia, or descendant of Genghis Khan” (1928). At the beginning of this century, the group Yat-Kha toured with it in USA, England, France and Italy. In its time, subtitles in 36 languages were specially made for the film, including some rare ones, like farsi and Urdu.
Kuvezin plans to put all of this together and record a full DVD.