FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tamar Fortgang
213-237-2873 (do not publish)
REDCATpr@calarts.edu

The CalArts School of Music, in association with Vocal Lounge, Presents:

CALL & RESPONSE - A Benefit concert for Drepung Gomang Monastic University in South India

February 27
REDCAT
8:30 p.m.
$24 general admission

View the event/purchase tickets

Los Angeles, February 16 -- The CalArts School of Music, in association with the Vocal Lounge, presents Call & Response, a concert that features The Tibetan Monks from Drepung Gomang Monastic University in South India performing with members of the CalArts School of Music faculty and alumni, including David Rosenboom, Jacqui Bobak, Mark Bobak, Michael Jon Fink, Vicki Ray and Julie Adler. New works composed by David Rosenboom, Mark Bobak, Michael Jon Fink, and Julie Adler will be world premieres created specifically for and inspired by this exciting event.

REDCAT - the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater - is CalArts' new performance venue and gallery in Walt Disney Concert Hall. Admission is $24 for general admission seating. Tickets may be purchased at the REDCAT box office located at the corner of 2nd and Hope streets, by calling 213-237-2800 or online at redcat.org.

Proceeds will benefit Drepung Gomang Monastic University.

CalArts' composers will respond to the ancient chants in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition performed by the monks of Drepung Gomang Monastic University in an interactive, responsive manner indicative of the event's title. Drepung Monastery was founded in 1416 near Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Gomang Dratsang, or College, is the oldest of the four colleges of Drepung. In 1959, before the invasion of Communist China, Drepung monastery had more than 10,000 monks. Gomang alone had about 5,500. Since its founding, Gomang College has produced many eminent Buddhist masters and has been an important Tibetan and Buddhist learning center.

In 1949 the army of the People's Republic of China invaded the country of Tibet. No one came to the aid of this sovereign territory and by 1959, the political and spiritual leader of Tibet, Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama was forced to flee his country. He was immediately followed by 80,000 refugees. Refugees continue to stream from Tibet, often at great peril to their lives

Only about 100 monks managed to escape with His Holiness the Dalai Lama when he fled Tibet in 1959. They lived first in Boxa, North India, and then, in 1969, 62 of the surviving Gomang monks were given 42 acres of land in Mundgod, south India. There they started to rebuild Drepung Gomang Monastic Dratsang in its present location. Today more than 1500 monks live on these few acres.

Gomang is located in Mundgod part of a larger Doeguling Tibetan settlement of 16,000 persons. Besides the monastery, this settlement includes 9 camps for lay people, a Central Tibetan Administration office, 1 school for lay Tibetans, a hospital, a medical center, a nunnery, an old persons home, a bank, a café and a guest hostel. Gomang Monastery interacts with the larger Tibetan community, teaching, assisting in the hospital, Old Folks' home, and providing training in Tibetan Arts and Crafts for the young people of the settlement while offering employment for the local Tibetan and Indian people. In addition, of course, the monks perform religious ceremonies for the Tibetans. All of these services are performed at no charge to the Tibetan Community.

For more information on the monks and the monastery, go to http://www.gomang.org

REDCAT inaugural season sponsors include Shamrock Holdings, KCRW FM, The L.A. Weekly, and The Standard Hotel, with additional media sponsorship provided by The Downtown News.

Back to REDCAT media/press room