Hanggai band members include throat-singing vocalist and horse-head fiddle player Batubagen. [Photo by Nan Zi/China Daily]

Sa, the winner of the BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music for the Asia-Pacific region in 2007, had a party for Ezrin and she invited some local musicians. Ilchi, the vocalist and tobshuur (two-stringed lute) player of Hanggai, a band of ethnic Mongolian musicians, was there.

"Hi, I am Ilchi from Hanggai," he said to Ezrin.

"I know you and your band," replied the producer, who had heard Hanggai years earlier with Grammy-award winning musician Peter Gabriel.

"Really? Would you work with us?" asked Ilchi.

"Absolutely yes," Ezrin said.