Rustavi

This evening I experienced one of the coolest things of my year in Lithuania. My Kyrgzs friend/student Altynai had told me about a the Rustavi Georgian men's choir (that's Republic of Georgia, in the Caucasas) coming to Klaipeda, and how much she wanted to go. I honestly didn't know much about the type of music, other than that Georgia is home to some of the most ancient monasteries in the world. In my imagination, a men's choir from there must sound like those solemn Bendictine chants that were so popular on the radio in the 90s! I wanted to spend time with her, and am always up for hearing unusual regional music, so I had her get me a ticket.

I cannot even begin to describe what an amazing sound this chior has, and so unlike what I imagined. Imagine 9 barrel-chested guys BELTING out perfectly harmonized, golden-toned acapella folk songs, in a language you can't even begin to understand. I could not help but think that my dad would have loved it (being the fan of such acapella men's groups as The King's Singers), and that there is no way a recording can compare to hearing the atoms of a concert hall vibrate while sitting in the front row! Their harmonies snake around each other and blend and modulate, and grow... It is seriously not like anything I've heard before. Altynai and I both said how much we could hear mountains in between the notes - it's a kind of music that sounds like it must have been invented while tending sheep on high hills, for the purpose of singing messages from one mountain village to another!