Tenzin Nyidon
DHARAMSHALA, Oct. 23: Tibetan-Australian musician and Grammy-nominated artist Tenzin Choegyal has won the 2025 Australian Folk Music Award (AFMA) for Contemporary Album of the Year for his latest work, Whispering Sky.
Sharing the news on his social media handle, Choegyal expressed heartfelt gratitude to his collaborators and supporters, “I’m so grateful and humbled to share the joyous news that our album Whispering Sky has won the 2025 Australian Folk Music Award for Contemporary Album of the Year. I’m deeply honoured to be in such wonderful company with so many talented artists.”
He further dedicated the award to the international team of musicians, producers, and organizations that made the album possible, “This album was a true global collaboration, and this win belongs to everyone who poured their heart into it: Manao Doi, Taro Terahara, Ayako Ikeda, Tenzin Kunsang, Hico Natsuaki, Matt Antal, the Metta Strings Quartet, Morley Shanti Kamen, Chris Bruce, Michael Askill, Marcello Milani, Linsey Pollak, Tony White, Evie Skye, Matt Hsu, Phakpa Kyap, Tenzin Kouji, as well as 4000 Records, Dawn Cooper, and Creative Australia.”
Choegyal noted that the win holds special meaning as it comes during the Year of Compassion and coincides with the 90th birth anniversary of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, whom he has long regarded as a profound source of inspiration. “This win is especially meaningful in the Year of Compassion and the 90th anniversary of His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” he wrote.
Released in August 2024 under 4000 Records, Whispering Sky has been praised as a “truly global venture,” recorded across Australia, Japan, Canada, and the UK. The album merges Tibetan nomadic traditions with contemporary world music, featuring a rich tapestry of collaborators from diverse musical backgrounds.
Spanning eight tracks and nearly fifty minutes in length, Whispering Sky embodies Choegyal’s mission to preserve and evolve Tibetan musical heritage while inviting listeners into a meditative sonic landscape. The album’s standout pieces include Rawang Freedom, inspired by the Heart Sutra, Dolma Whispering Sky, an ode to compassion with bansuri (Indian bamboo flute) accompaniment by Japanese musician Taro Terahara, and Gyallu Tibetan Anthem, performed instrumentally in reverence to the cultural restrictions on singing it within Tibet.
Critics have described the album as “hauntingly beautiful” and “immersive,” noting its seamless fusion of ancient mantras, contemporary instrumentation, and heartfelt storytelling.
Prior to this recognition, Choegyal was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2021 for Songs from the Bardo, a collaborative project with American artists Laurie Anderson and Jesse Paris Smith, which reimagined passages from the Tibetan Book of the Dead through music and spoken word.
