January 1, 1969 · 57 years old
Urna was born into a family of herders in the grasslands of the Ordos Plateau in Inner Mongolia, a society where song was a ubiquitous part of everyday life. Her first musical training was learning to play the yangqin—Chinese dulcimer—from a Shanghai Conservatory of Music professor who was visiting…

A promise, an old, destroyed horse head violin and a song believed lost lead the singer Urna back to Outer Mongolia. Her grandmother was forced to destroy her once loved violin in the tumult of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The...