Ani Choying Dolma (born June 4 1971 in Kathmandu, Nepal), also known as Choying Drolma (Ani, "nun", is an honorific), is a Buddhist nun and musician from the Nagi Gompa nunnery in Nepal. She is known in Nepal and throughout the world for bringing many Tibetan Buddhist chants and feast songs to mainstream audiences. Biography Ani Choying was born in 1971 in Kathmandu, Nepal to Tibetan exiles. She decided at an early age to pursue monastic life, and was accepted into the Nagi Gompa nunnery at the age of 12. For a number of years, nunnery resident Lama Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche taught Ani Choying the music that she is famous for performing. Musical career In 1994, guitarist Steve Tibbetts visited the nunnery and eventually recorded much of the Tibetan music with Ani Choying on two albums. The recordings, titled Chö and Selwa, were released to critical acclaim. Tibbetts and Ani Choying embarked on small performance tours, which included shows at several historical Tibetan monasteries. CHÖYING DROLMA AND STEVE TIBBETTS "Over the past few years, the music of Tibetan monks has gained a massive audience, with Western listeners finding refuge from the rat race in the chants and songs of the East. Those same medicinal properties are at the core of this breathtaking collaboration between veteran Minneapolis guitar wizard Steve Tibbetts and Chöying Drolma, a Buddhist nun whom Tibbetts met and recorded at a small monastery in Nepal. When Tibbetts returned home with the tape of Drolma's supernatural vocals he added some instruments to the songs and sent the tape back to the nunnery as a gift, and to Rykodisc and Hannibal Records, who decided to release it. The result is "Chö" (English translation: "cutting"), a beautiful pastiche of celestial songs that evokes a tenderness, optimism and appetite for life that cuts through in any language. Tibbetts' understated instrumentation nicely complement the nuns' disciplined chants, to the point where it sounds as if they've been collaborating forever." - St. Paul Pioneer Press