The V. Sarajishvili Tbilisi State Conservatoire International Research Center for Traditional Polyphony BULLETIN
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The V. Sarajishvili #2 Tbilisi State Conservatoire 3. Expert Meeting on Inventorying International Intangible Cultural Heritage at UNESCO Research 4. A Century of Georgian Sacred Chant Center for 6. Festival of Folklore and Sacred Mu- sic in Batumi 7. The Third National Festival of Chil- Traditional dren's and Youth Choirs 7. "Art-Geni" Folk Festival in Tbilisi Polyphony 8. The Second International Festival "Song of Samegrelo - 2005" 9. New Anthology of Georgian Sac- red Chant BULLETIN 10. New Website for the IRCTP 11. Information Database for Georgi- an Folk Music 12. Presentation of the State Folk Cen- ter 12. Preservation of Wax Cylinder Recor- dings in Georgia 14. Musical Fieldwork Expedition in Zemo Alvani, Tusheti 16. Fieldwork Expedition in huakhevi, Achara 17. Georgian Ethnomusicologist. Edisher Garaqanidze 21. Georgian Women's Folk Ensemble Mzetamze 23. Ernst Emsheimer - Friend of Cauca- sus Folklore 28. "In Our Village Alone There Were Eleven Krimanchuli Singers at One Time" Interview With Famous Song- master Vazha Gogoladze 31. Georgian Folk Song - New Transcrip- TBILISI. JUNE. 2005 tion. Aslanuri MravazhJamieri This bulletin is published bi-annually in Georgian and English through the support of UNESCO © International Research Center for Traditional Polyphony of Tbilisi V. Sarajishvili State Conservatoire, 2005. ISSN 1512 - 2883 Editors: Rusudan Tsurtsumia, Tamaz Gabisonia Translators: Maia Kachkachishvili, Carl Linich Design: Nika Sebiskveradze, Giorgi Kokilashvili Computer services: Tamaz Gabisonia Kakha Maisuradze Printed by: Chokhi The V. Sarajishvili Tbilisi State Conservatoire, 8/10, Griboedov Str., Tbilisi, 0108 Georgia Tel. (+995 32) 299-89-53, Fax (+995 32) 298-71-87 Email: [email protected]; [email protected] www.polyphony.ge 4 Expert Meeting on Inventorying Intangible Cultural Heritage at UNESCO From March 17-19, 2005, a group of sions, I spoke about the conditions for preserv- experts from UNESCO met in Paris to discuss ing, reconstruction and promotion of cultural tra- problems with inventorying UNESCO's Intangible ditions, especially of musical folklore, in Georgia. Cultural Heritage. Since 2003, the IRCTP has The safeguarding of Georgia's intangible been working on a 3-year project called "Safegu- cultural heritage is just beginning to become a arding and Promotion of Georgian Traditional serious political issue. The first step towards Polyphony." Thanks to the successful comple- realizing this is to create a legal basis for such tion of the first two stages of this project, I was work, and to identify traditions in need of pro- invited to participate in the meeting as director tection. If we don't know the value of our own of the IRCTP. The festival was held at the ini- culture, we cannot hope to look after it. tiative of Mr. Ricks Smeets, director of the Of course, this idea is nothing new. In UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Section. Georgia, as in many other countries, there has Among the 25 countries represented at long existed a developed system for identifying the meeting were Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, and documenting both general and specific forms Cambodia, Columbia, France, Georgia, India, of cultural heritage. In the spheres of Georgian Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, Nicaragua, South language and music, this began in the late nine- Africa, the United States, and Uzbekistan. teenth century, when folk poetry and song was There were four main parts to the meet- first collected. By the late Soviet period, there ing. Participants debated issues related to method- was a system of institutes devoted to the study ology for inventorying intangible cultural her- and research of folk poetry, folk music, crafts itage, and ways to solve problems associated making, etc. where both old and new materials with this process. UNESCO had sent special were added to create sizeable archives. Later, questionnaires in advance to collect information these institutes focused on inventorying and from participating countries, including Georgia. studying this material. During the meeting, I had the opportuni- These institutes function to this day, and ty to give Mr. Smeets a proposal from the Georgian are pioneering the use of new technology for Ministry of Culture, Monuments Protection and continuing their work, such as computer inven- Sport, to hold a regional conference on issues torying. One such inventory was completed in of inventorying intangible cultural heritage in 1996 by Elguja Dadunashvili, the head of the the Caucasus. Additionally, during the discus- folklore archive at the Georgian Institute of 5 Literature. An Internet version of this database was created in 2003 under the Goethe Institute's A Century of DAAD program. Georgian Sacred At a time when Georgia was in especial- ly dire straits, the Open Society - Georgia Chant Foundation helped the Georgian Folk Music Department at TSC to transfer recordings from On April 14, 2005, the Tbilisi State Con- servatoire's conference hall hosted a scientific its archives to digital format. Simultaneously, conference called "A Century of Georgian Sacred we began thinking about creating a special data- Chant: 1801-1921." The following scholars pre- base program, which we were able to start work- sented papers on sacred music: from the IRCTP, ing on in 2004 with the support of UNESCO. Tamar Chkheidze, Nino Kalandadze, Ekaterine Unfortunately, Georgia's state archives Oniani, Davit Shughliashvili, Magda Sukhiashvili, have had insufficient funding to inventory their and Tinatin Zhvania; from the Batumi Conservatoire, collections. Private foundations and internation- Khatuna Managadze; from the Georgian Patria- al organizations like Open Society - Georgia and rchate's Center for Church Chant, Svimon Jangu- the World Bank have financed certain projects lashvili; Wesleyan University music student and from time to time, but this has been too occa- Fulbright scholar John Graham; second-year stu- sional to affect the sphere to any serious degree. dent in the Music History and Composition Georgian society is well aware of the Department at TSC, Baia Zhuzhunadze. value of its folklore and the necessity of its Tamar Chkheidze's paper, "The Eight- preservation, but in the last several years, Georgia Voiced System in Chreli Hymn Books," present- has been too occupied to politics for anyone to ed an overview of the intonational and compo- devote much time to this issue. Fortunately, those sitional similarities within a single style of people who are continuing these traditions know Georgian church hymn, researching and com- how important it is to preserve them for future paring manuscripts that use the chreli symbols. generations. This is proven by their active par- Davit Shughliashvili presented a paper ticipation in the process of documentation, which called "Musical and Compositional Peculiarities has been continuing for decades. of the Eight-Voiced System in Georgian Chant." The preservation and promotion of intan- He illustrated the norms of this system with gible cultural heritage will always be supported examples from various schools of Georg by the public. Thanks to the 2003 UNESCO ian chant. Each unit of voice construction is des- Convention, the Georgian Ministry of Culture, ignated as a section with different functions, and Monuments Protection and Sport plans to begin the alternation of these functions has very strict working on establishing a legal basis for this order. The author identifies different eight-voiced soon. The Ministry has already taken significant groups, some of which include several different steps towards ratifying the Convention by cre- genres of chant. ating a state commission for safeguarding intan- A paper called "On the Semantics of Voices gible cultural heritage. (Ichos) in Divine Service Hymns" was present- ed by Magda Sukhiashvili. In this, the author Rusudan Tsurtsumia attempted to explain some peculiarities of the 6 was a brilliant theologian, preacher and poet, made a substantial contribution to the develop- ment of Georgian church chant. In her paper, "Song and Chant - the Rules of Erkomaishvili Family Life," Tinatin Zhvania discussed the traditions of this famous family of singers and their contribution to the preserva- tion of the great legacy of their ancestors - west- ern Georgian chant. Svimon Jangulashvili offered a paper artistic aspect of divine service hymns. Her source called "Handwritten Musical Manuscripts from materials included standard five-line Western the Archive of Bishop Stepane (Vasil) Karbelashvili." notation manuscripts handwritten in the 19th The author discussed several interesting aspects century by St. Ekvtime Kereselidze, and antholo- of this material. At the end of his presentation, gies of sacred hymns collected by Vasil and the choir of Holy Trinity Cathedral performed Polievktos Karbelashvili. several hymns from the archive. These hymns Khatuna Managadze, head teacher at the were in 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 11 voice parts. Zakaria Paliashvili Conservatoire in Batumi, pre- Based on press material from the 1860s- sented a paper called "Georgian Hirmi in 'The 1890s, Baia Zhuzhunadze discussed the activi- Great Canon' of St. Andrew of Crete as Recorded ties of the Georgian Church Hymn Revival in 19th Century Manuscripts." The author dis- Committee, which was founded in Tbilisi in cussed the peculiarities of the way "The Great 1860, and the work of Pilimon Koridze during Canon" is performed in the Georgian divine serv- this same period. ice. After having studied these transcriptions, John Graham