თქვენ საჭიროა მხოლოდ სიყვარული

Kobuleti School No. 3:
Note the Adjaran flag to the left, the Georgian to the right.
And the ubiquitous road construction in the foreground.

This post's title is Google Translate's version of "All You Need Is Love" in Georgian. I have a feeling it's not quite right. 

But that, at least, was the sentiment I wanted to share with my students, when my co-teachers asked me to teach them some songs for Valentine's Day. Not knowing too many "traditional" Valentine's Day songs (what even would that be?), I went with the Beatles classic. Here's a video of the students singing with me on the piano (video taken by Amir, a fellow TLG volunteer from another school in Kobuleti). The first two verses are sung by different sections of the 7th grade, the last one by one of the 9th grades:

There was a small gathering after school on February 14, with this and a few other songs in English, as well as poems and short scenes (in English) by the students. In keeping with the general trend of events in Georgia, it was planned at the last minute, started a half-hour late, and was ultimately really fun and good-spirited. Here are the adorable 4th graders singing the chorus of "You Are My Sunshine", with some vague gestures that I sort of made up to go with it:

This was not a one-way musical exchange, however! When the students and teachers found out that I had learned some Georgian songs (particularly "Aqvavebula Aragvze Deka", a real hit with the kids), they insisted that I sing them at the party as well. They also taught me the words to a local, Adjaran song, which I now love. It's called "Tsqals napoti chamohkonda", and as far as I can tell it's a song addressed to woodchips floating down the river, which are supposed to deliver a message to the singer's lover. Here's a performance of it on YouTube. I recorded these songs as well – accompanied by the school's music teacher as well as a student playing the panduri, a small lute. The sound isn't so good, though, because as soon as the students and everyone watching realized what we were singing, they all joined in, shouting and clapping and generally drowning it out. It was fun, though, especially when a boy from the fourth-grade jumped up and began dancing to the Adjaran song.

In other news, I hope to embark in the next few weeks on a small expedition to learn some Mingrelian songs. One of my co-teachers is Mingrelian, from Zugdidi, and an English teacher from Italy whom I met during the TLG training is currently stationed there. Zugdidi is a larger city farther north in the Samegrelo region, and Francesco, my Italian friend, has made some contacts with people who know some traditional songs. I'm looking forward to it, as Mingrelian songs are really lovely, and are in a different dialect than most Georgian music. For folks from Double Edge, the one Mingrelian song I know begins "O dido udo nanina," and it's one of my favorites.

Meanwhile, I'm investigating getting a panduri myself from an instrument seller here in town. Whether I'll be able to bring it back to the U.S. is another question!

A Death in the Georgian Family

Sunset on the Black Sea

Two Saturdays ago (Feb. 4), I attended a Georgian funeral for the first time. The man had died the previous Tuesday, and five days of official mourning followed, as per the custom – I was only present for the funeral, the gasveneba, so I can't speak really to the whole process of mourning that I was very close to for that week. During this time, I did write a fair amount in my journal, and I thought I'd excerpt a bit of it here. In general, I'm inclined not to publish the names of my host family here, but other than that, these were my reflections at the time:

Jan. 31: There's been a death in the family today: M.'s (my host father's) brother-in-law, the children's uncle. I met him last week, a large boisterous man with a huge paunch and unsteady gait. M. said he could drink five liters of wine in a sitting. Our first conversation consisted mainly in variations and conjugations of "Do you like Schnapps?" "Yes, I like Schnapps," etc., with a lot of good-natured laughter. He was much more animated than a couple of days previously, when I'd had dinner at this uncle's apartment with M. He had been ill that day, didn't drink at all, and mostly stayed on the couch. Even this last time, at the end of the night, he suddenly became very sleepy and incoherent. I wonder if he had been taking any medication. His death had something to do with his heart, though I wasn't totally sure when L., the grandmother, told me. She used a word that sounded like "impakti," which led me down the road of thinking a car crash may have been involved. [Given the truly insane nature of Georgian driving, this, sadly, would not have surprised me.] I'm here now with the three younger children, while the parents attend to the business of this, apparently sudden and unexpected, event. The kids were very upset, especially the oldest boy. I seem to be thrown into some kind of babysitter position, though I doubt what kind of authority they'll let me wield. The youngest especially is capable of being a handful – for the last ten minutes he's been eating an apple with a large knife, which I've seen him do before, and his older siblings seem not to think it's a big deal. Though the way he wields it while climbing around the couch makes me nervous…
I don't know how exactly how this loss will affect the family or my role in it. From a standpoint of culture, and possibly music, I'm curious to see any services that may happen, and also to be supportive however i can. Though I definitely don't want to intrude.

Feb. 1: I fear I may have missed the funeral, or am missing it now. I've once again been asked to stay with the children, and judging by the flow of new faces in and out of the house, there's some event going on now. [In hindsight, this was most likely just arrangements for the extensive mourning, somewhat like an extended wake, that took place at the deceased's apartment.]  I hadn't built up the nerve to ask about funeral arrangements, so it wouldn't surprise me too much if the Orthodox rites include a quick interment – but who knows? [I didn't.]

Feb. 2: It's [my sister] Jessica's birthday today – I plan to call her later, when there's a free moment to hop on the computer. [There wasn't one.] It looks like I'm in for another afternoon with the kids, as the parents get ready to go out after lunch … I'm not looking forward to the next few hours – at least with the TV on (it was off yesterday), they may zone out enough for me to finish Campbell's Primitive Mythology and do some preparations for the Valentine's Day party we're planning for school … [More on this party in the next post.]
At least I've learned that the funeral is Saturday. I plan to ask if I can attend, though they always seem to be busy or surrounded by other family, and I'm unable to seize the moment. My still very limited Georgian, of course, doesn't help.

[The intervening page in my journal is taken up with the text of a Georgian poem, "Where are you, my eagle?" by Vazha-Pshavela, written out for me by the oldest son. I intend to memorize it, some day.]

Feb. 4: Today I attended a Georgian funeral, but it was not the one I was expecting. Since Tuesday, I had assumed that the uncle who had died was S., whom I'd written about before. Imagine my surprise when he appeared among the mourners! I must admit, I'm drunker than I thought, so although I owe it to myself to record my observations of this event, perhaps I will wait 'til I'm sober-er.

[I can attribute this mistaken impression to a) my really minimal Georgian; b) my unwillingness to ask too many questions at this time; and c) the size and proximity of the extended family here in Kobuleti]

Feb. 5: Okay. It's the next morning. I ended up getting even drunker, with S., Z. (M.'s other, living, brothers-in-law) and M. at home. I excused myself at one point and went upstairs – to collect myself, I had planned – and promptly passed out until 1am. … I feel somewhat embarrassed about my abrupt departure, the first time I wasn't able to stick with a Georgian event to the end. I think I'll be forgiven, though.
The oldest daughter [who's in Tbilisi most of the time, and who speaks English well] is still asleep, but I want to be sure I ask her to communicate my thanks to the family for letting me attend the funeral, which was alternately fascinating, boring, and quite moving.

Around 11am, I went with the grandfather to join the others who were already there. Although I sensed some inconvenience from my host father at having to ferry me from place to place, by the end I think my presence had been accepted. We went to the uncle's house, or rather apartment, in one of those large concrete blocks. The men were standing in the stairwell or in the front hall of the fourth-floor apartment. I could catch glimpses of the women, sitting in chairs in the living room, and part of what I determined to be the bier where the uncle's body was lying, uncovered. Large groups of men and women filed up the stairs, paying their respects for a moment, then descending again, many of them with tears in their eyes. As they walked out, they shook the hands of the men in the stairwell, and a number of times I ended up in the handshake line, as though I were a member of the family. I felt more awkward about this after I realized that, since S. was alive and sitting next to me, I had never met the dead man. For nearly four hours, I stood with the men in this freezing concrete stairwell, as the same 30-minute CD of Georgian religious music was played again and again, with frequent, necessary adjustments of the volume. Meanwhile, the sun had emerged, melting all the snow and warming the scores of people I realized had remained outside the apartment building. From time to time, i could hear sobs or what I could only call laments emerging from the women in the living room. Finally, at 3 o'clock, the women all left the apartment and gathered outside. I left with the grandfather, realizing as I came out that all eyes were on the apartment's stairwell entrance, with a large area around it left open, and a home-improvement van standing ready with open back doors. The men followed, bearing the bier with the uncle's body. [I have no idea how they were able to maneuver it down the staircase.]

They set it on two chairs in the muddy parking lot, and the dead man's wife, M.'s sister, wailed over the body, soon joined by other women. My view was obscured at this point, and part of me was glad, as it seemed like such a private moment, on display (as no doubt it is meant to be) for all to see. A slow procession of cars followed the van with the body, but not to the church as I had expected, but to the cemetery at the north end of town. The view of the snow-covered mountains here was stunning, as the people thronged through narrow paths between the grave sites. No ceremony here either, but a brief gathering – the wife, now accompanied by the grandfather, her father, continued her lament, but then left the grave, with everyone parting to allow her to go first. I wonder if there is or maybe had already been a component of the memorial in a church service of some kind. [I've certainly heard of Georgian funerals in churches, and even of some of the particular music used in them.]

All of this was followed by food and toasts at a local restaurant. Long, long tables were stacked with food, while at least 150 people – men on one side of each table, women on the other – ate and drank. A man who I presumed to be the dead man's son led a number of toasts, and I suspect the wine was stronger, or the length of time between toasts shorter than I was used to – or it was merely my profoundly empty stomach after hours of stairwell-standing – that set me up so poorly for the night.

I have yet to formulate any grand ideas about this whole experience, but I do know that without the banquet, it would be too unrelentingly sad. The sense of relief and togetherness brought about by the banquet – and by the informal gathering back at my host family's house – was remarkable to me in the intensity and immediacy of feeling.

Writing again in the present:


I admit I've chosen a strange week to share this particular post – without going too much into it, this week in February contains the dates of a number of deaths in my own family – but as with all good travel, this time abroad allows me the space to reflect on my own memories and experiences, and to get a taste of the similarities and differences that tie us all together in the unending web of life, death, family, and community.

And now, a picture of a car filled with cabbages:

Port of Call: Kobuleti

This way, please …

It used to be a supermarket … can you tell?

After my exciting travels with the supremely hospitable members of ZAR, I settled into the more mundane environs of the Bazaleti Hotel in Tbilisi (pictured at right) for my week-long TLG training. TLG, short for “Teach and Learn with Georgia,” is a program run through the Georgian Ministry of Science and Education, whose aim is to bring native speakers of English to help teach in public schools. Their emphasis is definitely on quantity: there were over 50 new volunteers in my training group, with another 50 set to arrive the next week, in addition to the hundreds already in schools scattered throughout Georgia. There have been articles written various places about this program, which highlight different strengths and flaws. I won’t dwell too much on the training, which was incredibly boring (except for the Georgian language classes, which I quite enjoyed), and simultaneously too long and too short. Too short in the sense that there’s no way to get anywhere in a language (especially one as different from Indo-European languages as Georgian is), or thoroughly learn about a culture, in one week. By comparison, Peace Corps volunteers (of whom there are a number in Georgia, mostly also doing English language teaching, I understand) are trained in-country for I think two months before being sent to their destination. The TLG training was too long in the sense of each day (session after session with short breaks from 8am-7pm) and in the sense that each session could be boiled down to: “this is a different culture with different resources and expectations – be prepared to improvise.” Of course, TLG has to try to cover enough bases so the less culturally-adept volunteers don’t experience complete culture shock.

One view from my window:
the police station is the orange building to the left,
my school the yellow one to the right.

Anyway, enough about that. Only after five days of training did I actually find out my placement: Kobuleti, a coastal town in the southwestern region of Adjara. (Which could also be spelled Achara, or the way that I notate Georgian sounds for myself, Ach’ara). Adjara is technically an autonomous republic, though today its relations with the national government are pretty normalized. I haven’t noticed too much in my short amount of time to indicate any kind of difference in services or administration.  The landscape in this region is really stunning. We’re right on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. The house where I’m living is about 200 meters from the water. The whole town is basically two long streets (David Aghmashenebeli and Rustaveli, like in every other Georgian city) that run parallel to the beach, with cross streets in between, so my proximity to the sea isn’t anything special here. What is special, though, are the mountains that rise high up, a mere 5-10km or less from the beach. You can see them from my bedroom window. The only place I’ve seen pictures of that seems to compare would be Chile, where the Andes mountains rise directly from the coastal plains. As I understand it, there aren’t many established trails in the mountains near Kobuleti, so they tend to be explored only during the warmer months, when the snow and subsequent mud have somewhat receded.

My host family has been extremely welcoming and generous. There are four children, two parents, and two grandparents. The oldest child, who speaks English very well, is at the university in Tbilisi, so I’ve only seen her a few times. The mother speaks some English, enough to give essential information, though not necessarily enough to always know what I’m saying. With the father, grandparents, and the three youngest kids, then, I’m mostly stuck with my less-than-rudimentary Georgian. But it’s an ideal environment in which to improve, or so I keep telling myself.

First glimpse of the Black Sea

My first night in Kobuleti, I was immediately put in the archetypal situation of a Georgian supra. It was my host mother’s birthday, and I was literally delivered to the restaurant after an excruciating 6-hour marshutka ride from Tbilisi. I got to taste some delicious Adjarian food right away (similar in many ways to other parts of Georgia, but with a healthy dose of Turkish and Middle Eastern spices and techniques), and had to take part in many toasts, followed by dancing. My proudest moment was when I offered to sing a “Mravalzhamier,” a classic Georgian toast song, wishing long life to someone. The only one I know was part of a Double Edge Theatre performance (The Firebird, in 2010), and I didn’t know if it would be well-known in this particular region, but as soon as I finished the first phrase, the priest’s wife joined in on another part and others joined in. We got about halfway through before the harmonies fell apart (which easily could have been my fault, given the number of toasts that had preceded this moment). Immediately after this song, the local priest, who was also the tamada (toastmaster) of the supra, asked “Do you want a Georgian wife?”

(One recording from YouTube of the "Aslanuri Mravalzhamier")

In general, I’ve been less active in music-gathering since arriving in Kobuleti. The job has been challenging, working in grades 1-9, with about five lessons a day, always with a Georgian co-teacher. We’re planning a Valentine’s Day party, though, which will involve some singing (I taught some of the classes the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love”, not fully realizing how difficult the verses would be for non-native speakers). It’s also been difficult finding many musical events in town, though I suspect there’s more going on in Batumi, the regional capital, which is about 30 minutes away by marshutka. As the weather warms up, also, I imagine there will be more folk music and dancing going on. All three children in the house take traditional dance classes, and they’ve offered to bring me along to watch at some point. The oldest boy also taught me the words and melody to a Georgian folk song, which I’ve been slowly learning. It seems to be a two-part song, accompanied most often, I think, by a changuri (small three-string lute) and possibly drums. Here’s a performance from YouTube:

It looks like I’ll have to sing this song also at the Valentine’s Day party (with help from the children). So far, things are good in Kobuleti – I’m well-fed, adjacent to a great deal of natural beauty, and healthily challenged by working with young, rambunctious Georgian children.

Next Post: Attending a Georgian Funeral

Postcript: Shen Khar Venakhi

The grounds of the Samtavro (Transfiguration) Church and St. Nino's Nunnery,
in Mtskheta.

Hello! It's been a while since my last post, and this will just be a short one. I've been placed in the town of Kobuleti, on the Black Sea coast of Adjara, Georgia's most Southwesternly region. I've already had a week of teaching English as a volunteer with Teach and Learn in Georgia (TLG) and will be writing more as I settle into this new job. My internet time is limited (currently in the school's computer room), but I thought I'd just relate another part of my story from Svaneti:

On our first night there, we were welcomed by the Pilpanis with a huge meal, with toasts and songs (one of which I included last time). Later that night, I found myself standing near Islam Pilpani, the elder statesmen of the family, who speaks no English. He gestured for me and Alessandro, a member of ZAR, to sit with him. He then proceeded to pour us shots of homemade vodka (or ch'a ch'a), distilled from bread and wickedly strong. I did not want to refuse, afraid it would affect our lessons with him somehow. Three shots in three minutes later, I felt like he was warming up to us! Sometime later, he began singing the song that has been in my head constantly since setting forth for Georgia. Its name is "Shen Khar Venakhi" – "You are a Vineyard" – and it's a hymn to the Virgin Mary. It's an ancient piece of verse, probably from the 12th century, and the music, though it's hard to know for sure, is pretty old as well. Admittedly, it's one of the Greatest Hits of Georgian church music, but for me that didn't take away its simple beauty. I didn't have my recorder running when we sang it in the Pilpanis' living room, and it's probably for the better, given the uncertain intonation that tends to accompany drinking, so I'll just link to a recording by the group, Georgian Voices:

Shen Khar Venakhi, on YouTube

(I wanted to embed the video, but it looks like the ethernet in the school blocks access to YouTube!).

The smooth, stepwise motion of the middle voice, though not unusual in Georgian chant, reminds me so strongly of vines, growing and falling, interweaving with the other parts, which fits the images of nature throughout the text. The last part of the song, beginning with "mze khar", "you are the sun," accompanied by a stunning change of harmony, is always a shock to me.
Anyway, it was a great moment in Svaneti, to find myself unexpectedly singing one of the songs I was dying to hear. After we returned to Tbilisi, some of the younger people with ZAR were trying to learn it (it's part of the theatre's repertoire), and we ended up spending an hour singing the piece in the dining room of our home stay. It was the first time I'd taken part in a ZAR singing rehearsal – with their intense concentration and attention to details of dynamics, vowel shape, and breath – and it seemed like the perfect way to end the first part of my trip.

Swan Songs

The town of Mestia, seen from the road into the mountains

After many encounters with Georgian church music in Tbilisi (as well as a number of dinners and toasts at the quintessentially Georgian "Racha" restaurant), I set out with the group from ZAR for Upper Svaneti, a region of Georgia high in the Caucasus mountains. The people here, known as Svans, speak a quite distinct dialect of Georgian – many would say a different language – and preserve local traditions and customs, especially their ritual and folk music. Teatr ZAR's history with this region goes back at least ten years, to the musical expeditions that led to the group's first performance. As Jarek tells me, it took them some time to locate what singers they could learn from, eventually finding a place with the famous Pilpani family of singers. They've become famous partly because of their ability – especially the elder Pilpani, Islam, and his son Vakho – as teachers. After witnessing the truly ancient funeral song of Svaneti, the "zar," Jarek and his collaborators, in 2001, asked to learn it, and ultimately based their first performance around, and took the name of their group from, the "zar." So, this is an old friendship, and I was privileged to be present for the reunion.

Seen somewhere on the road to Zugdidi:
Quijote, for my friends at Double Edge

The trip to Svaneti from Tbilisi is quite long, 9 hours or more in all. Our main stop was in Zugdidi, a city only 28 km from the Black Sea. Along the way, I was reminded of the perhaps quixotic nature of my Georgian adventures (see left). The road from Zugdidi to Mestia has been recently improved, apparently, shortening that leg of the trip from 6 hours to about 4. I must admit, as our hired marshrutka sped around mountain curves, dodging debris from rock slides and the ever-present cows, I shuddered to think what the road used to be like. We arrived after dark, finally, and were welcomed, exhausted and cramped, into the home of the Pilpanis. A huge meal (the first of many) was laid out for us, followed by the obligatory toasts. Members of the Pilpani family and friends sang for us in welcome. Here's a short excerpt, recorded that night, of a Svani song, "Jgragish" :




We later learned this song from Islam Pilpani, though listening to it again, I can see that we never quite achieved the particular tuning and resonance that typify this music in its native environment. It snowed that first night, at least three or four inches, which gave an amazing stillness and silence to our first glimpses of Lenderji, the village where we were staying, and Mestia, the main town in Upper Svaneti.

The view from my bedroom window

The village, with its typical Svan defensive towers

Our mornings in Svaneti were our own to wander through the villages as a group, marveling at the natural beauty of the surrounding mountains, the age and often dilapidated state of the homes, and the incongruity of the new building projects, which include a tiny airport, ski lodges, and a tourist information building where we found neither tourists nor information.

An age-old sight in Svaneti

Not so age-old: the police station

We were unable to see the magnificent collection of icons and artifacts normally on-view at Mestia's Ethnographic Museum, as the Museum was undergoing renovation (read: had been completely demolished), another part of President Saakashvili's program of modernization at all costs. The precious items had been put in hiding during the construction. Fortunately, Jarek had gotten to know the priest in Mestia, and the next morning he took us to the oldest church in the town.

This is a two-tiered structure. The upper church, dedicated to the Transfiguration of Jesus, dates to the 11th-13th centuries. The lower church, which was completely hidden by soil when Mama Giorgi, the priest, first took his post, dates to the 8th-9th centuries, and was dedicated to St. Barbara. The frescoes in both churches had been restored – in the lower church especially, many layers of artwork can be seen at once, with earlier strata becoming visible through cracks in the newer.

The Crucifixion, in the upper church

Eyes peer through from an earlier age, in the lower church

On our way back down the hill from this church, Mama Giorgi – a man of maybe 55, with a long scraggly beard and gentle, sad eyes – began sliding down the slippery, packed streets, his feet in front of each other like an expert skier, a childlike joy in motion, pausing only when villagers paid their respects.

Islam Pilpani had promised to work us hard on the songs, and he did – we learned 10 songs in two packed days. I found myself singing the bani, the third, bottom part. Being a tenor, I normally would sing either the second or first, but also being the least experienced in Georgian singing, I was happy to tackle the relatively simple bass lines. From this position, I really could hear the structure of the two voices moving above me, and could start to pick up how to make the micro-adjustments of tuning necessary to hold the whole together. I recorded these singing lessons, but don't really think they're meant for public consumption – certainly not as any kind of substitution for the teaching of Islam Pilpani. The in-person transmission is essential to this kind of singing, with adjustments of notes and corrections of pronunciation by the teacher. Islam does also lead a chorus of men from Svaneti, called "Riho," and there are a bunch of their recordings online, where you can hear more of these rough-hewn harmonies. Many of the songs we learned were truly ancient – one of my favorites, "Lajgvashi," describes the different huge, magnificent animals that are to be sacrificed to various "pagan" gods. I was surprised to learn about newer songs, though, including one moving, relentless song called "Gaul Gavkhe," which describes the massacre of villagers in the town of Qalde by Russians in the 19th century. Clearly the sources of inspiration were not shut off deep in the immemorial past.

These marathon singing sessions were always followed by generous meals where everything was homemade – the bread, cheese, vegetables, yogurt and meat all grown, raised, baked, or cultured in the Pilpani household. I had never been so moved by hospitality, even if that's the thing I was most led to expect when traveling to Georgia. I'm very happy to be in the country for another five months, especially if it means I can travel back here in the spring, to see these wonderful people again and perhaps learn some more music. In the meantime, I will carry these memories, my recordings, and my cryptic musical notes, which I hope to be able to decipher after the songs have faded from my ears.

NEXT POST: Teaching English Somewhere in Georgia!

Christmas Vigil in Tbilisi

A view of Tbilisi from the Baratashvilis Bridge

After 11 hours in the Munich airport between overnight flights (a very nice airport, I might add, but still an airport), I arrived in Tbilisi at 4am on January 6, and was immediately relieved to discover that my friends' plane had been delayed. I was set to meet up with members of Teatr ZAR, a Polish theatre group who had done extensive musical research in Georgia, but international logistics being what they are, I was nervous that our simultaneously arriving flights would lead to some missed connection. Thankfully, I had time to get my bag and a bottle of water before ZAR arrived from Istanbul. I knew Jarek Fret, the director, and a few other members of the company already, and was pleased to meet some new people – from the U.S., the Ukraine, Italy, and South Africa – who had recently joined ZAR's work. After a quick ride to our homestay and a far-too-short nap (given that I was now 9 hours removed from Boston), we set out to explore the churches where we would soon hear some of the vocal music (sacred, in this case) that brought me to Georgia in the first place.

In Orthodox churches, Christmas takes place on January 7, and the most extensive celebration is the night before, with an "All-Night Vigil" beginning around 11pm and going until 4am in many places. In Georgian churches, everyone stands - there are only seats usually for the very old or unwell. That said, there's also a certain attitude toward attendance in which people are constantly going in and out of the church, staying for a minute, then going back out to talk on their phone or with friends. We started our evening at 11 at the Sioni Church, the former seat of the Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church. The place was packed – I stood shoulder to shoulder the whole time, and it took me a full ten minutes to push through the crowd (which had started moving forward, I think for the Eucharistic celebration) when I saw the rest of my group leaving. We ended up going to Sioni, Anchiskhati, Kashweti, and finally the Mama Daviti church, all in Tbilisi, in a night that ended around 3am for me (Olla and Tomek from ZAR lasted 'til 4 I think). I brought my audio recorder with me and was able to capture some of the music at the different churches. First, in Sioni, they have two choirs, one with mixed female and male voices, the other all-male, in the traditional three-part arrangement. Jarek tells me that in the past, they even had a third choir. It was really fascinating hearing the interplay of these two choirs with the heavily-mic'd voice of the priest, often in a different key than either of them. In this excerpt it begins with the mixed choir, in harmonies that sound to me at least more Russian than Georgian, with the male choir taking over about partway through:

Sioni Cathedral, packed inside and thronging outside.

After stops at the Anchiskhati and Kashveti Churches (at the latter the constant sound of the door opening and closing behind me made my recordings useless), the last place we went to was up a steep hill on the south side of the Mtkvari River, the Mama Daviti church. The choir there was remarkable – its director is one of the leading proponents of Georgian chant, and has reconstructed many of the old liturgical pieces – their tuning and sense of the acoustics of the space, and the simultaneously strong and gentle voices. Here's a brief excerpt from that night – I hope to return later in my trip for a more extended listening opportunity:

Mama Daviti Church, seen in daylight, before the grueling ascent

The next day at Mama Daviti (in my jet-lagged memory it felt like early morning, though it was really a Christmas Vespers service), I got to witness a baptism and hear a different incarnation of the chant tradition, as an all-women choir subbed in for the no doubt exhausted male choir. During the service, I turned to my left and suddenly saw the priest plunging a naked infant three times into a bathtub-sized baptismal font. The subsequent cries of the child (and the unforgettable look on the young mother's face) were counterpointed by the calm dispatch with which the priest carried out his duty. Here's a last audio sample from my Christmas church wanderings, first a haunting response from the women's choir and then a more elaborated "Aliluiyah":



Next Post: Venturing into the Mountains to Learn Swan Songs