Mdzlevari Choir

Mdzlevari Choir
03-15-05

I went with Lasha and Giorgi to the rehearsal of the famous Mdzlevari boys choir. These fifty or so youngsters aged eight to twenty five sing with such an incredible sound, they rival the great choirs in the world. They are directed by a famous soloist from the most well-known of Georgian choirs, the Rustavi choir. The Rustavi choir has been touring the world since the 80s with the equally famous Caucasian dance troup, Eresioni.

What a sound! They sing super quiet, super loud, with a rich, thick like molasses sound that can quickly change to an electrifying bright neon timbre that might make your hair stand on end if it weren’t so exactly in tune. I sat next to the director in a small room with fifty packed voices aimed right at my forehead. I employed my fire alarm hearing and poker face expression and weathered the storm of voices that are supposed to fill three thousand seat auditoriums. Indeed, the choir is going on tour to Moscow next week.

Suddenly, all the boys left, and fifteen of the older guys stayed. Wow, they sound amazing, exactly like the Rustavi choir. If closing my eyes were allowed here, I would have allowed my ears to do all my work, but eye-closing is somehow not culturally appropriate here because it appears you are sleeping and also other people cannot see what you are feeling and thinking. I could have used some Ray-esque shades. Anyway, I stared at the desk and listened, what a rare experience of chocolate covered hearing it was!

If any of my Futen boys are reading this, you’ll be excited to know that they sang nearly every song that we performed at Wesleyan including our first favorites, Kviria, Tsmindao Ghmerto, and Shen Khar Venakhi. Afterall, this is the Rustavi repertoire, which was my first inspiration to pursue Georgian music.

While listening, I chuckled in retrospect at how much my taste has changed. When I first heard the Rustavi cd, I only really loved two or three songs on the cd, and they were the most mellow, the most westernized songs coming out of the Russified music era of Georgian music. The other crazy sounding songs on the disc were beyond my listening capabilities at the time.

In contrast, at the moment, I’m listening to a 1930s field recording of West Georgian village singers singing crazy yodeling in three voice polyphony. I never listen to Rustavi anymore. It’s too clean, too western, it’s a new Georgia perhaps, but not the real Georgia; not the roots where Georgian folk music and Georgian chanting come from.

Nevertheless, it is a breathtaking sound, especially in knowing most of the songs, every note, every cadence. At school, I had to listen to every recording thousands of times to try to pick out the notes to write them down. Another chuckling memory, because now I can find note transcriptions for all of those songs.

But if I hadn’t needed to do that legwork, would I be here today? I’m just thinking that sometimes the tasks of love, though they might be drudgery tasks, end up changing our lives in the biggest ways.

I was so moved by the singing I had to make a speech, so in broken Georgian morphing into translatable english, I told them all about first hearing Rustavi’s cd in the library and falling in love with Georgian music, which has led me to be here this year and future years. I said their music has the ability to change hearts, to change lives, world-round. It is a proud music, and they should be proud to sing it.

What I didn’t say is that the Rustavi sound is a bridge. For those who have grown up with western music in our ears, we can listen to Rustavi, and from there slowly learn to appreciate what real Georgian music sounds like. Kudos to Rustavi, their famous director Anzor Erqomaishvili, who kept Georgian folk music alive through the communist era, and to all of their students and inspirees who will continue the revival of Georgian music!



For those of you whose interest I’ve sparked, just type in Georgian music on the web and see what you get for recordings: basically not much.

Check these sites out for information and cd possibilities:

http://www.deepdownproductions.com (distributor in Canada)

http://www.villageharmony.pair.com (Vermont choir who sell Georgian cds)

http://www.kavkasia.com (excellent American trio specializing in G. folksongs)

http://www.anchiskhati.org (the choir with whom I’m studying and for whom I will manage a States tour in October-November 2005 -more info coming soon!)

Best technique to find music (other than coming to visit me in Georgia): get hooked in with a University Inter-library loan system, and there are plenty of libraries around the States that have one or two Georgian cds each, some of them quite rare. Or track me and my computer down and I’ll hook you up :)