By Rusudan Gvazava
Georgian women’s choir an “extraordinary envoys of their country” abroad
“Tutarchela” is the first Georgian women’s choir that is throwing a challenge to male singers.
The first all female Georgian choir challenges male singers in the country, particularly because the repertoire of the group’s thirteen young singers mainly consists of historically male Georgian Folk songs requiring a great deal of energy and emotion.
“All the girls have strong natural voices, allowing them to sing songs of various genres, including folk songs,” comments head of the choir Tamar Buadze.
Particularly impressing is the group’s vivid singer Nana Shanidze who mostly amazes foreigners while abroad through unique ability to sing and dance like man.
“When Shanidze dances, no one guesses that she is a woman and foreigners become very surprised when learning that she is in fact not a man. People used to ask how such a little girl could dance like this and at the same time sing with such high and low voices,” told Buadze.
She also happily added that when they had guest performances in Switzerland and in Germany people often called them the “extraordinary envoys of their country”.
Those who had a chance to listen to attend their concerts are excited with their performance.
“The choir’s low voices are absolutely tremendous and the listener would never imagine it is performed by a woman,”
Ralph Haelbig, a German journalist, shares his impressions to the readers of
Georgien.blogspot.com.
In his opinion the group provides an “indispensable sounding board for even the hardest pieces to perform…Their repertoire stands out with its originality,” describes Haelbig.
The ensemble has conducted concerts in Switzerland and in Germany two times in June and July of last year and in April and May this year.
“After the concerts abroad people were coming to us and asking curiously from where we such a little girl by age and physically could get such a voices and especially they were surprised how we could sing manly songs,” said Zhana Kokaia, a soloist member of the choir.
“Tutarchela”(which means “bright moon” in Megrelian language) was established in 2004 in Rustavi, under the guidance of Mrs. Tamar Buadze. Most of the girls have a professional musical education and have graduated from Tbilisi State Conservatory’s choir-conducting department. The group performs European and classical songs, folk songs of different countries, as well as folk songs that are specific to all the regions of Georgia including Abkhazian folk songs. Lazic folk songs take a very special place in the choir’s repertoire and are personally arranged by the head of the choir.
The ensemble received a good promotion after being shot in German documentary called “Air to Breath”. Ruth Olshan, a German documentary movie director, happened to listen to the choir at Art-Gen festival, a Georgian folk festival that takes place annually. It turned out that the director loved Georgian folk music since her childhood and had always dreamed of coming to Georgia and shooting a film about Georgian culture. The film shows how choir women sing in dull, dilapidated halls of the bleak town of Rustavi. After the film was shot, the ensemble received many invitations to conduct concerts abroad.
“The two Swiss women who are now our partners and also friends were the first to see the film and decided to meet us. They then invited us to Switzerland and to Germany and we held concerts in many cities there, such as Beri, Rudolfstadt and many other cities,” one of the choir members Nino Mamagulashvili explained.
Last year “Tutarchela” became a laureate of the Georgian folk festival” National inspection” where they won a prize for best performance of a Khateian song “Tsangala”. The ensemble has been invited to several concerts and festivals in Autumn to abroad for Second tour through Austria and Germany.
Tamar Buadze admits her choir is sometimes criticized for having crossed into what has been the realm of the male singers until now. But what is important is that the listeners like their performance. So, Buadze’s female choir has a long way to go to Europe.
