With intimate links to everyday and spiritual contexts alike (through the Orthodox liturgy but also through epic ballads, lullabies, songs for entertainment, weddings and work...

With intimate links to everyday and spiritual contexts alike (through the Orthodox liturgy but also through epic ballads, lullabies, songs for entertainment, weddings and work etc.), the sophisticated polyphony of Georgia – performed here with passion and invention by the Ensemble Basiani – evokes a distant musical past even as it surprises by its modernity. We can assume that polyphony in Georgia has been sung since time immemorial in as much as its extensive and varied musical legacy continues today to be intimately linked to the material and symbolic life of a people who express their emotions and reaffirm their existence through group singing. It is a folk art that plays a central role in the important moments of daily life and is performed by all of its members: Mainly male groups, to a lesser extent but still many women’s groups, and the rare mixed groups.

In any case, the music belongs fully to the community and all Georgians are qualified to take part in the circumstances in which it is used. In addition to the specific linguistic and dialect features of the regions that make up Georgia, each of them has forms of music with diverse styles and processes linked to specific social circumstances. With deep European roots and certain Mediterranean flourishes (a genuine and ancestral tradition of viticulture and gastronomy), the beauty, refinement and complexity of its vocal polyphony –sacred and secular– coincide with the use of a language (kartuli) with a non-Cyrillic alphabet (mkhedruli) in use since the 11th century, also unique in the world.