Song Collecting

For the past two summers Helen has toured with Village Harmony. It's an organization that supports musicians and ethnomusicologists who wish to gather village songs from around the world. I received an email from one of her summer conductors telling the story of his trip to Georgia. In the video below, a family is teaching him a song called "Chaghma Chaqrilo Venakho." Then there's a bit of scenery from Georgia. Finally, there is this event. He writes:

Later on you'll see an unforgettable incident of "kidnapping" - or perhaps, toast-hijacking. We had been at a festival where we sang & there were some other local singers who wanted to meet us but there just wasn't time. However, they knew which road we had to take to get back to our village, so they set up a table in the middle of the road & waited for us. As you see, other cars have to stop, and by the time we left there were 3 or 4 cars stopped in either direction. It was pretty amazing, and a truly Georgian experience (don't try this in North America!)

Merisi from Kazio Sosnowski on Vimeo.

Here is Helen's group singing a Georgian song last summer. Now it's easier to picture where the music came from.