John Graham ’03, who has been studying the revival of ancient polyphonic vocal music in the Republic of Georgia, talked to the Argus about a Georgian vocal ensemble he is bringing to Wesleyan. The group will perform Tuesday, Oct. 25 in the Memorial Chapel.
SC: What inspired you to study Georgian music?
JG: I think everyone secretly hopes that one day a subject will land in their lap that is not only extremely interesting but also touches a deep personal chord. I fell in love with Georgian music one night on the third floor of Olin Library, and since then, I’ve spent almost more time living in the country that created and inspired this music than anywhere else. During my senior year at Wesleyan I was directing a small ensemble of sacred music singers for my thesis project, and after discovering the amazing harmonies of Georgian sacred music, I quickly changed my thesis topic.
SC: The World Music Collective is hosting a Georgian men’s ensemble, performing in Memorial Chapel, as part of their first tour of the United States. How have you been involved?
JG: Well, to begin with, I helped organize the tour, and I’ll be along for the ride as manager. But the longer answer is that while living in Georgia this past year, I got to know this choir and decided to try to help make this tour work for them. It is nearly impossible to make a living as an artist and difficult enough to meet group expenses in their economy, so professional groups need to travel to bring back income for future projects like recordings or publications. Mostly I’ve been finding venues through email, and on the tour I’ll be driving, translating, and introducing for the choir concerts.
SC: Where else is the choir touring?
JG: We begin in southern Vermont, and besides Wesleyan, we’ll be in many of
the major cities on the East Coast as well as the Midwest: Boston, NYC, Philly, Washington D.C., Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Chicago to name a few. [The whole itinerary is posted, along with photographs, biographies and other details at
www.villageharmony.org/concerts/anchiskhati.html]
SC: What can you tell us about setting up a tour like this—did you have issues getting visas? Do many people know about Georgia or Georgian music?
JG: Living in Georgia, I was able to communicate with the choir members easily and help them gather their paperwork for the visas. Actually, I did the applications for them one night in my apartment. But all year I’ve been organizing concerts and logistics for the tour by email. The Village Harmony organization from Montpelier, Vt. also did a lot of the organizing and is fronting the money for the tour so that worked out well. As for people knowing Georgian music, not really. I think this tour is really going to open the ears of our musical culture to the folk traditions of Georgia.
SC: The Caucasus mountains on the Georgian border seem to be a hotbed of political activity. How are the arts faring since the collapse of the Soviet Union?
JG: Thankfully, art and politics seem to be going their separate directions now that there isn’t a “cultural minister” who dictates what can and cannot be written, sung or rehearsed. But as far as I can tell, the traditional arts have been in steady revival since the late 1980s. Everything from carpet making to ceramics is in revival, and singing is leading them all. Singing has always been at the heart of the church life, and the folk ritual life, so it seems to make sense that it is doing so well even though the economy is dismal. New choirs are going back to turn of the century recordings and hunting down old village singers to revive an older form of Georgian folk music than existed during the Communist era, when music tended to be very stage oriented. These choirs are finding that the old church chants and folk songs were far more amazing than previously thought. Among the revival choirs, the Anchiskhati Ensemble is leading the way with a dozen recordings, sold out concerts, and several chant publications. Their students are singing in many younger groups as well.
SC: You sound like you’ve become immersed in the revival movement there. Where do you see it going from here?
JG: The most important thing is that young Georgians learn their own culture. Singing in Georgia used to accompany every aspect of life from the death of a grandmother to the birth of a daughter. Work songs, ritual songs, war songs, traveling songs… there are just hundreds of them, and between the regions, they’re all different from one another. If the young generation, which has that particular challenge of being the first ‘global market’ generation, can find value in their own folk culture, then the tradition will survive. To help this happen, an increased interest and appreciation from foreign audiences and singers will boost its internal value. But the music speaks for itself. It captured my heart to the point where all of my life decisions are based on it, and it could do the same thing for many other non-Georgians.
SC: Are you going back?
JG: Yes definitely. I’m working on a book on the history of Georgian church chanting, and also trying to learn their language, Kartuli, which is incredibly difficult. Their alphabet was invented around the 4th century probably, but the language itself is ancient, non-Indo-European. It’s only related to other languages in the Caucasus. Actually, cool fact: the Persian name for the whole region is “Mountain of Languages;” it’s true, in an area the size of Pennsylvania, there are over sixty languages, which is about as many as there are in Pennsylvania… just kidding, that’s my home state.
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