ZEDASHE
ENSEMBLE
MUSIC FROM THE REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA
Saturday, November 6, 8pm
Glen Echo Town Hall
6106 Harvard Ave., Glen Echo, MD
Tickets $15 (Glen Echo town residents free)
Info and tickets: Betsy Platt 301.717.4641
glen.echo@erols.com
“Beware Zedashe. Their impeccable tuning and the casual air with
which they deliver small choral gems to your unbelieving ears will, at
the very least, afford you glimpses of the High Caucasus in the times
of warrior knights and mountain fortresses.”
–Susan Miller-Coulter, Burlington, VT
Hailing from the Republic of Georgia, Zedashe Ensemble presents a concert
of traditional Georgian music, both secular and religious featuring the
(ancient) haunting three-part harmony unique to the Caucasus Mountains
of Georgia. Returning for their third US tour, Zedashe Ensemble commemorates
the upcoming 20th anniversary of Georgian independence with an evening
of song and dance.
Accompanied by traditional Georgian instruments and two virtuosic dancers,
the ten-person ensemble promises to transport you from the crags of the
Caucasus Mountains in Svaneti to the shores of the Black Sea in Adjara
to the vineyards of Kakheti. Their songs reflect a range of rituals, from
grape harvesting to the teaching martial arts, to hymns from the Georgian
Orthodox service.
The music features a dark, sonorous vocal quality and startling, unexpected
harmonies. Directed by Ketevan Mindorashvili, Zedashe was founded in the
mid 1990s to recover a repertoire suppressed during the Communist era.
This was a turbulent time in Georgia’s struggle for national unity
and the country had little access to electricity. Much of Zedashe’s
early development as a group occurred in trying circumstances when they
gathered in their homes to sing together by candle-light. Currently, Zedashe
also works to preserve and revitalize a way of singing threatened by modernization.
With five men and three women singers, and two dancers, Zedashe is one
of the few mixed gender performing ensembles in Georgia and they have
developed a highly distinctive sound, which captures the traditional way
of singing in the home.
This concert tour represents two years of research, in which the chorus
gathers field recordings from various singing-masters and families throughout
Georgia. From these recordings, Zedashe develops a concert program that
preserves the integrity of the singing context from which songs are gathered.
These are sometimes accompanied by the chunir (Svan bowed lute), panduri
(Kakhetian lute), chonguri (Gurian lute), doli (drum), chiboni (goat-skin
bagpipes), and accordion.
Dance is an integral part of traditional family singing, and all the members
of Zedashe are trained as dancers and several of their songs include traditional
dances. Zedashe is joined by solo dancers, Eka Taralashvili and Erekli
Kanchurashvili, who show off the intricate footwork and gestures of varied
traditional Georgian dance styles, both lyric and martial.
With her rich and flexible, low-contralto voice, Ketevan Mindorashvili
has won a wide reputation for her mastery of the intricate, melismatic
ornamentation of the traditional songs from her native region of Kakheti.
Ketevan is joined by long-time singing partner and brother, Shalva. The
brothers Shergil, Shmagi, and Betkil Pitskhelani come from a large family
with a long tradition of singing in the highland region of Svanetia. They
bring knowledge of the remarkable archaic singing styles of this remote,
high north-eastern region where non-tempered tunings of the old Georgians
remain alive in current practice. Because the group is made primarily
of singers from these two families, their sound is authentically familial
and in performances it is evident that their friendships extend beyond
the stage. This unique configuration of voices led Theodore Levin, Chair
of the Music Department at Dartmouth College to remark: “The Zedashe
Ensemble is unquestionably one of the top two or three ensembles in the
world performing the culturally unique traditional vocal music of Georgia”
The group's name is taken from the special earthenware jugs — zedashes
—used for making wine. The wine made in zedashes was especially
for the veneration of ancestors and the tapping of the zedashe every year
carried great ritual significance.
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