Voices & Mountains by Russudan Meipariani featuring Ensemble Anchiskhati

Russudan Meipariani - composition/vocal/keyboards
Ensemble Anchiskhati - Georgian male choir (leader David Shugliashvili)

Voices & Mountains – in this album Russudan explores new soundscapes, bringing together the Georgian male choirs dark and archaic sounds with her own voice. Fusing the polyphonic songs with electronics in a minimalistic way, she relocates them into a new reality. She translates the melancholic lyrics of Georgian poet Galaktion Tabidze into music. His poem "Silence" is a hymn to the night describing the transition of daily reality into the world of dreams and darkness and the slowly changing state of nature. In that crossing state, desolation, ease and the bite of sweet scents are co-existing- powerful, magic and enchanting like the musical encounter of the whole album.

The Georgian composer, pianist and singer Russudan Meipariani travels musical interspaces connecting archaic tradition of Georgian polyphony with post-minimalistic structures and elements of experimental pop.
Born in Tbilisi, she grew up in an oscillating urban cosmos between Christian-influenced Georgian traditions and Western-oriented culture.
Discovering the music of Björk, Tori Amos, Cocteau Twins, Kate Bush and Laurie Anderson during her piano studies had great impact on Russudan Meipariani's artistic development.
Later she studied composition with Wolfgang Rihm in Karlsruhe and with Lasse Thoresen in Oslo, acting in different worlds: as classical pianist and as composer/performer, experimenting with voice and pushing the boundaries of genres.
Until now she explores musical universes in different Ensembles and interdisciplinary projects.

Ensemble Anchiskhati is one of the most famous and most exciting male choirs in Georgia, popular for their exceptional authentic way of performing traditional music. Part of their pioneering work was gathering field recordings of elders singing traditional songs at most hidden places in Georgia. Their rough and powerful voices are like a force of nature, a very own time capsule with infinite layers of ancestors, myths and sounds in it.

Russudan Meipariani is a Georgian composer, pianist and singer.
Her music combines classical, minimal music, georgian polyphonie, contemporary new music, and works with elements of pop culture. The soundscape that Russudan's music creates is academic and archaic, contemplative and extrovert, dreamy and wild, strange and familiar at the same time.