Singer Ardak Issataeva was born in the Jambul Region of southern Kazakhstan, and graduated from the Conservatory in Almaty, where she now teaches lyrical song. Issataeva’s style illustrates the venerable tradition of the bards – solo performers of oral poetry who typically accompany themselves on a strummed lute with silk or gut strings. Female bards were once rare, Issataeva is in the vanguard of a generation of young women who are challenging traditional gender boundaries in nomadic music. Issataeva performs lyric songs from the province of nomadic troubadours called sal or sere.