>> Stephen Winick: Welcome.
I'm Steven Winick of the
American Folklife Center
of the Library of Congress.
For many years, we've presented
the Homegrown Concert Series
featuring the best in folk music
and dance from around the world.
In the year 2020, because
of the global pandemic,
we shifted to producing an
online video concert series,
which we call Homegrown at Home.
So, 2021 was our second year
of Homegrown at Home concerts.
It's now early 2022 and
we are doing interviews
with the artists who performed
in the Homegrown at
Home 2021 Series.
And we decided in this case,
we should also interview John
Graham, an ethnomusicologist
and historical musicologist
who facilitated the concert
of the Running Up Quartet
from the country of Georgia,
and who also participated
in their video concert
as a cultural interpreter
for our American audiences.
John is a scholar
and entrepreneur,
a traveler and a teacher.
He lives in Tbilisi, Georgia
with his wife and children,
but he keeps close
ties with family
and friends here in
the United States.
He does sing in a
church choir there,
and he supports local musicians
and NGOs with his voice
in the Georgian community,
and he regularly travels
in Georgia as well.
He holds degrees
in ethnomusicology
and historical Musicology,
including a PhD from Princeton.
He's received several
prestigious awards and grants
in both countries, including
a Fulbright research grant
from the US.
And he's taught at prestigious
universities including Yale.
He's an active facilitator
of cultural exchange,
and he organizes performance
tours in the United States
for Georgian ensembles.
And in particular,
he's been involved
with several concerts here
at the Library of Congress.
He regularly lectures on topics
related to Georgian music,
and he also gives
practical workshops
on Georgian folk
and sacred music.
He currently also directs his
own cultural tourism business,
John Graham Tours.
So, all of those things
are the sort of activities
of our guest, John Graham.
So, welcome, John.
>> John Graham: Thank
you so much.
>> Stephen Winick:
And I'm also going
to introduce Theadocia
Austen, who is the coordinator
of public events for the
American Folklife Center.
Thea is our staff specialist in
the area of Georgian culture.
And she is also the main
organizer and producer
of the concert series itself.
So, the secret is that
she's actually at all
of these video interviews too,
but she mostly stays backstage,
but today, she is
joining us on camera.
So, welcome, Thea.
>> Theadocia Austen: Hello.
>> Stephen Winick: All right.
Well, we can get started
with asking John some
pertinent questions
about Georgian music
and his involvement.
>> Theadocia Austen: Okay.
Well, John, you know, why
don't you tell us about --
a little bit about how
you became interested
in traditional Georgian Chant?
I know you went to Wesleyan,
and I think you have
a very special story
about Shen Harvenaji [phonetic].
>> John Graham: Thank you, Thea.
It's wonderful to be
in an interview context
with you hosting.
Thank you so much, and
to you, as well, Steve,
thank you for that
long introduction.
Well, I first became
involved in Georgian music
or I first learned about
Georgian music back in 2002.
I was an undergraduate
student at Wesleyan University.
And I was looking for a
topic for my senior project
and researching different
kinds of sacred music,
which was the focus of my
music major at the time.
But I was also very much
a traveler and wanted
to travel the world living in
monasteries and studying music
and different religions.
Those were my passions
back then.
And so, in researching various
world sacred music traditions
in the library, I came across
a CD by the Rustavi Ensemble,
this -- the Georgian state
ensemble since the 1950s.
They have many incredible
albums from the Soviet era,
on the Melodia label
and later on CD.
And that particular
one was from 1996.
It was called "Georgian Voices",
and the first track or one
of the first tracks there
is [foreign language],
which is a chant called "Holy
God", the [inaudible] hymn.
And one of the next chants
is [foreign language],
the one you just
mentioned, Thea.
And these two chants really
struck a chord with me.
I immediately transcribed
them after listening
to the chants many times
and took them to a choir
that I had formed to
do my senior recital
on Gregorian chant.
And I always tell the joke
that after a couple weeks
of rehearsing Georgian chants
together with Gregorian,
we decided to just abandon
Gregorian and focus on Georgian.
My advisors never even
noticed the difference.
That's, of course, not true.
They were thrilled that I
had discovered something
that was unique and interesting
and that I was passionate about.
And at that time as an
undergraduate, I didn't feel
like I had a real contribution
to make in a performative
or scholarly way to the
Gregorian Chant tradition,
which is, of course,
the medieval music
of the Western Catholic Church.
I love that repertory.
And I do hold my musical
roots in that repertory,
as well as the Anglican
tradition which I was raised in.
But in becoming passionate
at that time
about a new polyphonic
sacred music tradition
that I really changed the
course of my own personal story
and professional trajectory
in life with that decision.
And for the rest of the year,
we studied Georgian
three-part harmony,
and we did several
performances at Wesleyan.
And after I graduated, I
decided to come to Georgia;
that was in the summer of 2003.
>> Stephen Winick: And
how did that come about?
How was that move for you going
to Georgia for the first time?
>> John Graham: Well, it's
a very different world here.
I had traveled quite a
bit around the world,
but I had never heard
of Georgia,
or I didn't know anything
about it before falling in love
with the music, I had never
studied the cultural history
of the Caucasus region, which
is absolutely fascinating.
I didn't know anything about
the languages here in this part
of the world, which are
non-Indo-European languages.
They write and they
have a literature
in their own alphabet, not just
one, three different alphabets
from the medieval and
early Christian period.
So, there was so
much to learn here,
and the geography is
absolutely stunning.
The great Caucasus
Mountains, they're higher
than the Alps or the Sierras.
And every single valley system
seems to hold its own culture
with its own diverse languages
and cuisines and music systems.
So, it was a great place to
land as a young adventurer,
someone with a focus on music.
And that turned out
to be a perfect inroad
into Georgian culture
because polyphony
and polyphonic singing is
something that's very strong,
very deep for Georgian identity.
And anyone that comes to
Georgia as someone interested
in something that's important
to the people here receives
an open door, a red carpet,
and folks here are very
friendly, especially to anyone
that takes an interest
in their culture.
>> Theadocia Austen:
So, how did you --
I have to just add that [foreign
language], that recording
of the Rustavi Ensemble
changed my life.
[Inaudible] Yeah,
[inaudible] not alone.
>> John Graham: The two of us
and many other people, that's --
there's something extraordinary
about those recordings.
>> Theadocia Austen:
Yeah, they really are.
Well, so how did you
plug into the community
of traditional singers when
you first got there to Georgia?
>> John Graham: Well, I joined
a small group of Americans
and Brits, and we studied folk
music in the town of Sighnaghi
for two weeks, under a
program that had been organized
by the Village Harmony
Organization
from the United States.
And so, we studied
with local singers,
and we had meals together
with those singers.
And so, there were
rehearsal times,
and then there were
the feasting times
where the singing
would continue.
And there were also field
trips to visit other singers
and other interesting
cultural sites in the area
like medieval churches and
castles and national parks.
And then after that two-week
tour, I stayed for three months
to study Georgian language.
And then when I went
back the following year
with a Fulbright grant,
that grant was specifically
to study the manuscripts of --
that record, the
sacred music tradition.
So, that project
happened in Tbilisi,
and I was much more active
in seeking out everybody
that was involved
in traditional music
from conservatory professors
and students to the archives
and the manuscript center.
And there's a ministry
of culture here
with a folklore center
and division.
So, I was also lucky
that that fall
when I started the Fulbright
in 2004, there was a symposium
for traditional polyphony.
And it was a relatively
new initiative
by the leading members of the
cultural sphere here in Tbilisi,
but they had attracted a lot
of interest national
attention and interests.
So, there were many
international choirs that came
to Tbilisi and international
scholars.
And everyone came together at
the same time about one month
after I started my project.
So, that was a great place to
meet everybody all in the --
all at the same time
in September 2004.
I'll never remember --
I'll never forget, rather,
many of the meetings, the
critical meetings that I made
at that time, including with
the Anchiskhati Ensemble
and with Lur Soptokonitae
[phonetic],
who I ended up doing an
important translation together
with him that led to
towards my dissertation work.
>> Theadocia Austen: Wow,
that must have been magical.
I mean, so much synchronicities
and coming together.
Yeah.
>> Stephen Winick: And
ultimately, of course,
I think it's fair to say that
this also changed your life.
I mean, big seismic life changes
eventually followed, including,
you know, marriage
and conversion.
Can you talk about that
process a little bit,
about sort of becoming more of
an insider in Georgian culture
or moving toward living there?
>> John Graham: I would
be happy to, yeah.
It was -- well, the
conversion story,
I had grown up in various
Protestant contexts.
So, I'd been baptized in
the Christian community,
which is a small group of
followers of the teachings
of Rudolf Steiner and his
Anthroposophical movement.
My parents were devotees
of Rudolf Steiner
and career Waldorf teachers.
And that was the
educational system
that I had been raised in,
but it doesn't raise people
to be particularly
acolytes of that religion.
Rather, many people
raised in that church or in
that philosophical
system, end up going abroad
or seeking other sorts of
traditions and reaching
out for -- to find
their own path.
So, it's really about
teaching the human being
to be self-actualized and
make important decisions
for themselves.
So, many of my friends have
joined various other paths,
whether they be religious
or agnostic, let's say.
But they all have strong
beliefs in one way or the other.
My path led me towards
religious exploration.
I studied Buddhism.
I studied many Protestant --
early American Protestant
religions.
I was interested in shamanism
and Native American religion
and -- but my roots
were in Christianity.
And I also grew up
in a boys' choir
and a high Episcopalian
Church in the --
in Valley Forge Memorial Chapel
in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
So, this was an introduction
into say the high
Anglican practice
of basically Catholic liturgy.
So, coming to Georgia, where
it's Orthodox Christian,
this type of deep ritual
experience was familiar to me
from those boy-choir days.
Meanwhile, the deepness of
the prayer and the belief
of the parishioners was
what struck me the most.
People really take
their belief seriously.
They pray every day,
morning and night,
before eating, before traveling.
They pray for their family
members, for their friends.
And when they enter
sacred spaces,
they enter with a
sense of reverence.
And somehow this was
unique and different to me.
Of course, I was under
the spell of being
in medieval stone cathedrals and
singing Jordan polyphonic music
and being around, you know,
new culture and new language
and all backdropped by
the Caucasus Mountains.
It's very impressionable.
I'm not the first to fall
into the impressions here.
So, I converted to Georgian
Orthodox Christianity
in February 2005, and it's a
decision that I'll never regret.
I basically allowed orthodoxy
to come into my life.
It doesn't mean that
I am a strong advocate
or let's say proselytizer
for Orthodox Christian
social values.
I still have my own culture
and my own social values.
But I have been blessed to
meet many amazing people
in the Orthodox Church,
and I try to do my best
to be an active member of the
church in the ways that I can.
[Inaudible] And then
in turn you're --
the second part of
your question was--
>> Stephen Winick: Yeah, yeah,
the -- more [inaudible] or,
you know, more on
the personal side.
Yeah.
>> John Graham: So, that
happened several years later.
I met my wife through
the conservatory circles.
We got engaged in 2010
and married in 2011.
At first we lived in --
she's also a musicologist
with a PhD in music history.
And she's a wonderful
singer and pianist.
For the first four
years of our lives,
we lived in the United
States, while I was finishing
up my PhD work and doing
some postdoc teaching.
And then in recent years, we've
been back here in Georgia.
My wife finished her PhD, and
we've had several children.
And now I've been working
mostly with my travel business,
and also being an
advocate for many
of the choir trips
that I organize.
At the same time, both my wife
and I are involved in a lot
of academic projects but not
as our main source of income.
>> Theadocia Austen:
I remember that one
of the first times you came
to the library was 2005
with the Anchiskhati Ensemble,
so not long after
that momentous year.
That was one of -- that was
still one of the best overviews
of Georgian traditional
folk songs, I think,
that you can find on the web.
It's a webcast on the library's
website with [inaudible].
Well, and actually the
entire choir, they're talking
about the different -- you
know, an overview of the styles.
But it's one thing, you know,
to become part of the culture,
but it's another step
to decide to get a PhD.
So, how did you decide to do
-- you know, to take that step?
That's a big step.
>> John Graham: Yes.
Thank you for that question and
also for that memory of coming
to the Library of
Congress in 2005.
That was with the
Anchiskhati Church Choir.
And that experience of working
with them really galvanized my
interest, not just as a passion
to sing Georgian music
and be a student,
but galvanized too my idea
that perhaps this
could be a career path.
And that perhaps I could
professionalize this interest
by returning to graduate school.
And then being -- putting
me in a position perhaps
to be a better advocate, a
better bridge for this music
between Georgia and the West
and back and forth, which is --
which had become one of my
main ideas for why I wanted
to continue pursuing
this passion.
So, that trip came about
during the Fulbright year.
There was -- there were so many
amazing singers here in Georgia.
And it was a really momentous
time because the manuscripts
that recorded Georgian sacred
music, which were written
in the 1880s and 1890s,
had been secretly put away
in Soviet archives for almost
the entire 20th Century
but had been recently discovered
by members of this ensemble,
the Anchiskhati Ensemble.
So, they were in the process
of singing those chants,
were putting out a number of CD
recordings, and also publishing,
editing and publishing those
chants in small collections.
And there was a series of
books that were coming out,
I think volume two had come
out right then in 2004.
Now we're at volume eight,
and I've been the English
language editor, fortunately,
on the -- on this --
these series of books,
and they're very important.
It's what everyone
sings from now in all
of the Georgian Orthodox
churches throughout the world.
And this choir had a big role
in popularizing this form
of repertory, which had
once been an oral tradition,
but had gone out of practice
under Soviet suppression
and was being revived by
the Anchiskhati Ensemble.
So, I thought it was really
important to share their work,
not just their incredible
voices and their music,
but also their musicological
work with the world.
And that's why we -- together
with a team, we organized
that tour to the United States.
We had about 25 concerts in
five weeks in October 2005.
And one of the important ones
was at the Library of Congress,
I think, precisely because,
Thea, you were involved
in helping us record
that pre-concert lecture.
And that was -- that's --
that was part of the mission.
It was not just to
perform but also to educate
and to help popularize and
to help bridge the knowledge
that these the members of
this ensemble had to contain,
hold within them to prospective
audiences, not just those
in the room, but to
all the future scholars
and interested performers
that will come
after we are not here anymore.
So, that's the idea.
The oral tradition
may have been severed,
but now we're reviving it.
And in the future
that this will --
this incredible musical
tradition will be reborn.
>> Theadocia Austen: We
were incredibly lucky
that you were -- brought over
these leading researchers
and singers to give us an
overview of traditional singing.
It was such a wealth
of scholarly knowledge
and talent in the library.
It was such an honor to be
able to record that concert.
I remember a funny side note
was that because it was 2005
and this -- the Capitol
was undergoing all
of these new security measures,
we weren't able to allow them
to bring their daggers in.
And they--
>> John Graham: That's right,
they had the traditional
costumes on that included,
you know, 12-inch long daggers.
So, that's right [inaudible].
>> Theadocia Austen:
[Inaudible] not happy.
And I was so sorry about that
because I love their
[inaudible].
But that was an incredible
opportunity that you brought us.
And they're wonderful, wonderful
people that I've had a chance
to meet, you know, again
and again several times.
But so, thank you,
we're really indebted.
>> Stephen Winick: And we're
really happy to have that video,
as Thea said, on the library's
website, as well because --
both the videos, the lecture
and the performance itself.
Because it really does
sort of, you know,
help to spread the word
about this tradition,
which was really important
at that time, and continues
to be important because of one
of the things that you talked
about and that you had
to deal with in your PhD,
which was the repression
of chant,
first by the Russian Empire
and then by the Soviets.
Could you talk about that
repression a little bit just
so we get the context
of all of this?
>> John Graham: Yeah, I --
thank you for bringing me back.
I sidestepped the question
about the dissertation
because it's too big of a
topic to summarize, of course.
But you know, let's
see where to begin
with the repressions
of the chant?
It really started when -- like I
said, it was an oral tradition.
And that gave it
flexibility to survive,
despite the long war
torn history in Georgia
of many invasions coming from
-- mostly from the southeast.
The various Persian empires
always considered the Caucasus
region to be part of their
periphery and an important place
to bring under their control.
And then, in the
last 1,000 years,
there's been the Turkish
presence in Anatolia
to the southwest -- immediately
to the southwest of Georgia.
And they also considered
the Caucasus to be part
of their general empire,
especially during the 3-400
years of Ottoman imperial rule.
So, at various times, the Turks
were fighting the Persians
in Georgia.
Now before them, of course,
there were Byzantines,
there were Romans,
there was [inaudible]
and many different major groups
have considered the Caucasus
a battlegrounds.
And -- but throughout all
of this history, they're --
Georgians were able to
maintain their culture
by remaining flexible, and the
oral tradition allows for that.
And you see this in oral
traditions around the world.
There were certain core
tenets to the tradition
which had to be preserved.
So, in the case of
Georgian polyphony,
that meant little
snippets of model melodies
which are sung by the top voice.
And then there are other
elements of the tradition
which can be improvised
around those core elements,
and they should be improvised.
That makes the core
elements stronger
and less malleable
and less changeable.
Because everyone's improvising
around an accepted group
of rules like jazz song being
improvised around a set of --
a progression of chords
and an established melody.
Same principles here.
So, this oral tradition
was resilient and robust
and persevered in various
monastic centers throughout
Georgia -- the Georgian
medieval ages.
Scholars think that it goes
back to the Seventh, Eighth,
Ninth Centuries, so when
Christian melodies were coming
into Georgia, but it
quickly vernacularized
into the local three-part
harmony folk tradition.
And so, the sacred music was
also sung in three-part harmony.
So, active repression of
this music doesn't start
until the Russian
Empire arrives in 1801.
And their mission was not so
much to conquer and destroy
and kill it was rather to
incorporate the various peoples
at the periphery
into their empire
and to make them imperial
citizens and to Russofy them,
both linguistically and
culturally and religiously.
So, the Russian Orthodox
Church took
over the Georgian
Orthodox Church,
bans the patriarch in 1810.
Basically, sent all the
Georgian bishops into exile
in a desert monastery
at [inaudible]
and placed pro-Russian
bishops in charge
of the few remaining
coalesced diocese.
So, before there were
35 diocese in Georgia,
and the Russians made five
diocese put pro-Russian bishops
in charge.
And that's how they were
able to control the church.
And in a religious country,
that was a major
engine of social power.
They also controlled
the institutions
like the various
seminaries and put pro --
put Russian singers
in those seminaries
to teach Slavonic chant.
Now, there were some
Russian appointed exarchs,
or head of the Russian
churches, who were fascinated
with Georgian culture, the
frescoes, the architecture,
the music, but there
were very few.
Of the many Russian exarchs
that came throughout the 1800s,
most of them were
anti-Georgian, pro-Russian.
And therefore, the
oral tradition
of Georgian chant went
into steep decline.
Between 1801 and a time when
the first chant was written down
or when the first major project
started in 1884, there went --
there were -- in 1801,
there were thousands,
maybe 2-3,000 master chanters.
By the 1880s, there were less
than 10 in the whole country.
And by master chanter, I mean,
not just people that
sang in church.
I mean, someone who was a
master of the oral tradition.
That's all they did.
They had been trained in
that, and that's what --
it was their profession.
And it was -- it
signaled someone
who was very intelligent,
knew at least 3,000 melodies
by heart, knew how to harmonize
them in three-part harmony,
knew how to ornament all three
voice parts, and knew how
to teach that to
a new generation.
So, these were the
master chanters,
and there were very
few by the time
that this tradition was written
down into European-Western
notation in the 1880s.
>> Theadocia Austen: And
the Karvelashvili [phonetic]
brothers were sounds like
half of -- half of that.
I mean, there were
five brothers.
Right?
>> John Graham: That's right.
That's right.
And they -- you know,
they wouldn't even say
that they were mastered
chanters.
Their father and their
grandfather had been
but no one was able
to record their father
or grandfather in notation.
So, these brothers,
who inherited their musical
tradition through their father,
who was a priest, and
likewise, they were all priests,
they had to do a bit
of self-education.
Vasio [phonetic] Karvelashvili
took himself to Moscow
to learn European
notation specifically
so that he wouldn't have to
rely on other people to write
down his family chant tradition.
He could write it down himself.
And his archive is one
of the most interesting
because we can see his process.
We see him write down the
first voice canonical melody.
Then he writes the bass part,
very simply, and then he doodles
in the middle voice, creating
all of these improvisations.
These chants that you and I fell
in love with the very beginning,
Thea, they're from the
Karvelashvili tradition [foreign
language], for example, the
famous one that we sing,
that middle line that
sounds like the melody--
[ Singing ]
That's Vasio doodling.
You know, he just imagining
that sort of doodling.
The actual melody
is the top voice.
[ Singing ]
So, that's the melody, but when
you add these ornamental lines
underneath it, as Vasio was
prone to do and, you know,
blessing us all with this
incredible musical tradition a
century later.
He did that with all of
the chants in his archive,
whereas his brothers
were more interested
in preserving a simplistic
style.
And they didn't -- they didn't
ornament, the middle voice.
And it's mostly just
parallel third harmony.
So, there's a lot of interesting
aesthetic choices that were made
by the various people working
to preserve these traditions.
And that gives us a good
glimpse into the breadth
of the oral tradition and the
various ways to manifest it.
Any day that you went to church,
you might hear the same
singer singing it in a --
in an ornamental style
or a simple style.
You might be able to hear
singers from East Georgia
like the Karvelashvili brothers
that we're talking about
or from Central Georgia
or from West Georgia
or other places whose traditions
were never even transcribed
into notation.
So, it's a very rich
musical tradition there.
[Inaudible]--
>> Theadocia Austen: But I'll--
>> John Graham: Go ahead.
>> Theadocia Austen: No, but
influenced probably somewhat
by the local folk style.
I mean, Boolean chants
sound different than chants
from the east, for
instance, would you say?
>> John Graham: That's Right.
The Karvelashvili brothers,
these priests that we're talking
about from East Georgia,
who lived and worked
into Tbilisi area in the 1880s,
they were also folk singers.
They knew many, many
folk songs from here,
and in their transcriptions,
we also have folk songs
alongside the chants.
These two were -- these two core
repertories were inseparable.
The same singers singing
folk music would sing
in the church and vice versa.
And the singers were always
the most important guests
at any family gathering, like
someone's birthday or a baptism
or important family
feast day, etcetera.
You would -- you had
to have singers there.
That was the main
form of entertainment.
So, singers were important
members of any group
or a family unit,
or in the village,
if you were a good singer,
you were going to be requested
at almost every party.
So, these -- the Karvelashvilis
knew their local folk music.
And the way that they
would improvise on that --
the core structure of their oral
tradition would be improvised
in the manner that
they were familiar
with in their folk music.
So, Vasio had such fluidity
in writing these doodling,
ornamented middle
lines precisely
because that's what happens
in East Georgian folk music.
The upper voices
improvise over a drone
in East Georgian folk music.
And so, the singers are very
fluid and flexible and adept
at these long melodramatic
singing lines.
And we can hear that in the
folk music from East Georgia,
and it also comes into the
improvisational elements
of the sacred music tradition
from the same region.
>> Theadocia Austen: And of
course, there were also efforts
to record some on wax
cylinder, weren't there?
>> John Graham: Yes, now,
the -- so in the 1880s,
there was active tradition
in writing down the notation
on paper using a Western
European notation,
which was a new technology
that had come in,
in the Russian Empire.
You know, that was one of --
the Russians brought many
good things to Georgia,
including administration,
organization of the opera house,
so western music,
etcetera, etcetera.
But also, the recording
technology entered
around the same time.
I think the -- there was an
English company called the
English Gramophone Company.
And they arrived in Tbilisi
and set up an office in 1902.
And their goal was commercial.
They wanted to sell
these gramophones,
the actual machines.
But to convince people
to buy their machines,
they needed to have
something good to listen to.
So, they cast about
and asked people, well,
what do you want to listen to?
And there was a lot of rural
Georgians who were moving
out of their villages and moving
to the cities at that time.
There was a massive
urbanization in the country.
So, lots of rural
people living in there --
in the cities, working in
factories, working jobs,
and missing home and
missing traditions from home,
and they wanted to
hear folk music.
And so, that was the reason
that these English engineers --
not trained as
ethnomusicologists mind you.
They didn't go out and
find one or two exemplars
from every single repertory
and seek out the best singer
in every village, you know,
as much as we would love
if they had done that.
Rather, they went to one
village and recorded fifty songs
from whoever they could find,
made a couple of, you know,
wax cylinders, and they would
later make the shellac discs
and sell gramophones.
So, these are absolute
treasures.
And we have to give credit to
Anzor Erkomaishvili and his team
who have been active for the
last fifty years tracking
down all of the original
copies, which were in archives
in Moscow and in Berlin.
And these English gramophone
companies' originals were
in London, and they're --
you know, there's some
of these recordings
in various archives
all over the place.
And they've been tracked
down and reproduced on CDs,
so now that everyone can listen
to these early recordings.
Starting in 1992 and
up until about 1916,
that's when these
recordings were made.
And then after that,
in the Soviet period,
speaking of suppressions,
that was when the
real suppression
of sacred music came.
Sacred music just
couldn't be performed.
So, if the previous century had
been the Russian Empire trying
to Russofy the Georgian Orthodox
Church, there were still people
like the Karvelashvili brothers
who were inheriting oral
tradition through their family.
Even if they couldn't
go to a seminary
and find any paid Georgian
teacher teaching music
because they were all sent home,
you could only learn Slavonic
chant in any of the seminaries
in Georgia during the 1800s.
But it was not outlawed
to sing sacred chant.
It was in fact encouraged.
But in the Soviet period,
we have a total switch
where it becomes cultural policy
to suppress anything having
to do with the Orthodox Church
and with threat of exile.
These same singers
that had been recorded
by the English gramophone
company in [inaudible] region
and the Guria region
on the Black Sea coast,
they were threatened in 1934.
If we -- by authorities
that said,
if we hear you singing
sacred music,
it's off to the gulags with you.
So, they had to sing
behind closed doors,
making sure that any
agents weren't nearby
or neighbors spying on them.
And we have firsthand
accounts of their children
and grandchildren learning
sacred music chants by listening
under the door late at night
as the adults were humming
quietly in the background.
And these are firsthand accounts
from older people in the 1990s,
who remembered in the 1920s
and '30s, learning these chants
by heart listening
under the door.
You could just imagine how
incredible that was, this deep,
rich oral tradition and then
having this new authority
saying, you're not
allowed to sing this music.
And we're going to separate your
family and destroy your family
if you continue to sing this
music, but they did so anyway.
And the kids knew it
was so precious to them
that they hungered to
learn it and memorize it
and remembered it their
entire lives and continued
to perform it in private
throughout the Soviet Union.
So, that in the 1990s,
ethnomusicologists
could interview
such a person and
learn this story.
That's how the oral
tradition survived just
by a hair throughout the
Soviet Union, just by hair.
Few people could remember
one or two chants,
and the oral tradition
survived in that way.
Otherwise, we're
completely dependent
on those transcriptions
that were made in the 1880s.
>> Stephen Winick:
Which itself is kind
of an interesting question.
Right? So, there were
written transcriptions,
there are our wax cylinders,
and then, of course,
there were Choral arrangements
like Paliashvili,
the famous ones.
And all of those survived
through the Russian period.
And then, you know, they exist
now after the Soviet period.
And they're being used to some
extent as the basis for revival.
So, how did these different
kind of documentary forms
of Georgian chant affect what's
being done in the revival now?
And what are the --
what are the advantages
and challenges of having those?
>> John Graham: That's
a great question, Steve.
And it's a big marketplace
now, which is --
which I think is a good thing.
Let's say you're a choir
director in Tbilisi.
And in the church, if you're
a choir director in church,
you're supposed to sing
three-part harmony,
Georgian sacred polyphony
as inherited
through the oral tradition.
Okay, so the repertories that
were composed in the second half
of the 20th Century
after the thaw,
which allowed more
Orthodox Christian practice
after World War II.
So, there were more
people that were able
to attend church
services, more choirs,
and some composers dabbled
in composing sacred music
in the 1960s and
1970s and so forth.
This repertory was still around
in the 1990s and the early 2000s
when I first came here.
And now you'll be hard
pressed to find it because,
in most churches now,
there's a revival
of the traditional
repertory, the one championed
by Anchiskhati church
choir and published
in the eight volumes
I was speaking about.
And now there's even more
volumes put out in recent years.
And the composed repertory
is becoming somewhat lost.
And perhaps we'll be
writing musicology papers
about that in a few years.
Meanwhile, there's been --
if you're a choir conductor of a
non-church choir, but you would
like to perform sacred
music, there's also a breadth
of repertory to choose from, and
one of the main ones is the --
there's a composer named Zakaria
Paliashvili that you mentioned,
who composed a mass in
Latin, which wasn't published
until this past year 2021.
It was finally published, and --
but he did publish a second work
which is called the
Litorgia [phonetic].
It's basically a mass,
and it was in Georgian.
And he published that in
1910 and just a few copies,
and we don't know if
it was ever performed.
And then the Soviet Union came,
and it was certainly
out of favor.
And [inaudible] really had to
pivot immediately towards opera
and composing songs in favor
of the Soviet social
policy and so forth.
So, the Litorgia was kind of
lost, but it was out there.
It was a published copy, and one
of the major choirs that from --
that found this repertory
and promoted it is the
Capitol Hill Chorale.
And thanks to Thea and Parker,
this work became
known to the choir.
And they spent many years
performing it, producing a CD,
and coming to Georgia on tour to
perform it here to rave reviews
and to great influence.
Because now we see a lot
of Paliashvili-related projects
coming out of that tour,
which happened in 2019.
So, that's -- the
Litorgia's a major work for --
it's a sacred work
but for the stage,
kind of like the
Rachmaninoff All Night Vespers
and these other large choral
works that were invoked
in the turn of the
century Moscow
where Paliashvili had studied.
So, it's a 50-minute
work and includes lots
of different numbers, so range
for large chorus, six voices,
and it's a fantastically
beautiful piece.
So, that's also available for
choir directors to choose from.
And then there's all
different styles.
One can sing in a
European choral style.
One can sing in a
neo-traditionalist style
with more of an open
throat and folk style.
You know, small choirs
of five singers
or you have large
choirs of 100 singers.
So, it's a very interesting
time,
musically, here in Georgia.
>> Theadocia Austen: Let
me also just interject here
that John made this
tour of Georgia
with the Capitol Hill
Chorale possible,
and it was unbelievable.
It was just absolutely
magical, very single day.
Ninety people went.
And I have to say that, for me,
the fact that every
single person
on that tour now has a personal
relationship with Georgia,
I find really exciting.
And the fact that we were
able to bring Paliashvili home
and say, we think
this is so beautiful.
It's yours.
We hope that you also
think it's beautiful.
And one of the most absolutely
magical moments for mem
and I think for other people
too, was the final event
at Samtavisi Cathedral,
which is the home cathedral
of the Karvelashvili brothers.
Their -- a transcription
of their mass was
actually the basis
of Paliashvili's
arrangement of his Litorgia.
John set up a musical exchange.
It wasn't a performance.
He got permission from
the bishop for us --
the chorale to go and sing
this in a church setting,
which I think is really special.
And it was very unusual and
required special permission
because it's not church music.
It was arranged, but we -- but
he also brought his own choir
and the women's choir,
Ioloni [phonetic],
to sing the Karvelashvili
transcriptions
of their own versions.
And so, they would sing their
-- the Karvelashvili version.
And then we would sing
Paliashvili's arrangement.
So, it was a back and forth.
It was a conversation of what
was happening 100 years ago.
And I think Dotto [phonetic]
Shugliashvili was there,
one of the country's
leading musicologist,
who said that he felt like
he finally understood what
Paliashvili was trying
to do, you know,
add to this conversation
of preservation in --
with the skills that
he happened to have.
And those skills were trained
in western conservatories.
And yes, they were influenced
by a Russian conservatory,
but he was trying
to do what he could,
bring his gifts to
the preservation.
And I think that it was
something that was rejected
for a long time, but it was very
touching to me, the exchange,
the conversation, and that Dotto
said that he understood more
about what Paliashvili
was trying to do.
So, that was just -- that
experience was mystical.
And it meant absolutely
everything to those of us,
I think, who worked
on that project.
So, thank you, John, for
making that possible.
Because you and your magical
powers, [inaudible] people
and music and meaning together.
That was amazing.
>> John Graham: It
really was, Thea.
I -- you know, I had a --
I had the vision of putting
it together, and I worked
for a long time to
put it together.
But I also have the
same experience
that you just described
of being a participant
in something that was mystical.
I -- that's my memory of it.
My memory is not all
the difficult logistics
of getting everyone into one
place [inaudible] the same time
with -- well-fed, with all
the permissions in place,
and all the competing interests.
My memory of that, thankfully,
is of that mystical experience
where -- a musical experience
where we heard what
Paliashvili was hearing in 1900,
which were the Karvelashvili
brothers singing
in their open throated, strong,
full-voiced chants
with long phrases.
They must have had
incredible breath support.
They were singing since
they were small boys
and in drone polyphony, and
they could sing these long,
melodramatic phrases
effortlessly.
And we heard that
from the Georgians.
And then we heard Paliashvili's
version, where he had gone
to Moscow, studied with
Sergei Taneyev, to have been
around Smolensky,
Kastalsky, Rachmaninoff,
and all these others there, and
he knew what European music was.
And he'd heard incredible
choirs,
the Moscow [inaudible]
choir performing this music
in great cathedrals in Moscow.
That must have been so
impressionable for him.
So, he -- Paliashvili
wanted to come back,
take what he knew
of Georgian music.
He knew it was valuable, and
he wanted to interpret it
and make it accessible
to the world.
And that's precisely what
he did with that Litorgia.
And here we are 120
years later, Americans
and other international
singers in the chorale,
singing Paliashvili's vision
and hearing its influence
from the Georgian
singers at the time.
I think it was equally
powerful for the Georgians
to hear the Paliashvili
in that context.
Because Paliashvili has only
performed in single chants
in rarefied stage environments.
But here we were, in the
Karvelashvili church,
and we were hearing both
versions of the same text.
And they're very similar.
They're musically cousins.
They're like -- or you could
say a parent and a child,
you know, it's so similar.
The effect was, as you said,
mystical and just gorgeous.
>> Theadocia Austen: We were
-- we were in the same --
that same space, as he said.
It was almost like
time was collapsed.
It was the present and
the past at the same time.
It was amazing.
So, thank you.
Thank you.
>> John Graham: Thank you.
>> Stephen Winick: So, you
know, we've talked quite a bit
about the liturgical side
and the religious music.
What are some of the
challenges for the transmission
of traditional folk music?
I mean, we know that liturgical
chants were very specifically
repressed by the Soviets,
but what about folk music?
And how do you imagine
the future
for revival of that tradition?
>> John Graham: Great question.
And through the -- I'll step
back a little bit and say
that during the Russian Imperial
times, which is 1801 to 1917,
the folk music was
not suppressed at all.
So, the challenges for folk
music in that period were,
what I mentioned
before, urbanization.
So, a lot of the folk songs
had to do with the context.
If you -- there's a whole
repertory of songs for threshing
and for heying and for, you
know, group work activity.
There are these -- there's a
whole genre called [foreign
language] of these
kinds of work songs.
Hauling logs, you know,
people depended on firewood.
So, they had to go up steep
mountain slopes, cut logs.
They had to move it themselves
manually with a group.
And to do that, they used --
they synchronized their efforts
with singing, not unlike
many other musical traditions
around the world where there
were similar work songs,
including in America.
And as people move to the
cities and started working
in factories, of course, they
didn't need the songs anymore.
They stopped performing them.
So, there's a loss of
context, which was one
of the main challenges for the
transmission of folk music.
So, at the same time that
sacred music was being studied
and written down in the
1880s, when it was --
when it really picked up,
at the same time there were
a few ethnomusicologists
who turned their attention
to preserving folk music,
folk poetry, martial arts,
folk dance, basically all
of these rural traditions which
were increasingly under threat
because people were
leaving the villages.
And they just -- they -- the
traditions were being lost
in an urban context,
where communities were not
as tightly bound and didn't
rely so much on culture
to keep themselves together.
We all know the city
environment creates different
cultural contexts.
So, we have some collections
of notation and folk music
from the 1880s, '90s, and the
first [inaudible] 20th Century.
And we have lots of books of
folk poetry, which was written
down by the same ethnographers
and some books of dance steps
and other such interesting
works, costumes that --
you know, all the
embroidery traditions,
even a few cookbooks, which
were collected at that time,
of local recipes from
mountain regions.
So, in the 20th Century,
the major challenge
under the Soviets was
that the Soviets decided
to professionalize folk music.
So, what you get is this
professionalized version
of these incredible
singers, the best singers,
and now they're paid,
and they're dressed.
And they have a certain number
of singers, and they're onstage,
and they're doing what
they're told to do.
And they do it every single day.
And they're absolutely
phenomenal at this, okay.
And I'm talking about the state
ensembles, not just Georgia,
but every single republic
in the Soviet Union.
And it wasn't just singers,
it was also instrumentalists.
I mean, the Soviets
had this thing
where they would take one lute,
some kind of folk instrument,
and then they would treat it
like a violin and make it larger
and larger until they could
have a string orchestra
of that instrument.
So, instead of a violin
in the Georgian context,
it was a lute called
the panduri.
So, we have the normal panduri,
which is 2feet long
like a violin.
And then they created five
different sizes of panduri,
and there would be a an ensemble
of twenty people playing this
like string orchestra
of panduris.
Okay? So, this is, you
know, in retrospect,
a little strange for us.
It's not homegrown, so to speak.
It was definitely a
created repertory,
but it was entertaining,
and it was professionalized.
So, what it did is it
helped support folk music
to some degree, but it
also suppressed other types
of natural processes that happen
when folk music is sung by folk,
by real people in real contexts.
Now, if you wanted to be a
folk singer, you imagined
as a young child singing like
those singers that you saw
on the stage at the local
festival or when radio came in,
that you heard on the
radio, or television
that you saw on the television.
And it was no longer
how grandma's singing
or how grandpa's singing or how
my buddies and I are singing
or how I'm singing in the fields
as I do this manual labor,
or this historical ballad that
I'm going to sing to my children
over the long winter nights.
And there were thousands
and thousands of folk songs
because it accompanied every
walk of life, mourning songs,
marriage songs, traveling,
horseback riding songs,
lullabies, healing songs
for the sick children,
thousands of these
kinds of songs.
Which we -- there has
been a revival of them now
in the post-Soviet period.
But a lot of it has been
from those early recordings
in the pre-Soviet era by the
English gramophone company
and others, those
collections of transcriptions,
which were recorded starting
in the 1880s, and from families
that managed to preserve
the folk --
the oral tradition of folk music
intact in their family strains.
Like those people I
mentioned in Guria,
who in the 1930s learned
some chants by listening
under the door when their
parents were singing in secret.
They maintained an
oral tradition
in their families
throughout the Soviet Union.
That's a separate stream from
the professionalized paid music
of the local culture ministry.
So, that -- so folk music
is equally fascinating.
It has an equally interesting
transmission history
with definite chapters,
which parallel the
transmission of sacred music.
But one could say that it
had different challenges
than the sacred tradition and
therefore different results.
There are far more folk songs
that are available to us today,
far -- a much more diverse
performance practice
and different harmonies
from different regions.
And Georgians take
this very seriously.
It's very important
part of their identity
to know the different folk music
from the different regions,
and especially in the
in the post-Soviet era,
as it's become less
professionalized,
people are starting to sing
it again as folk music.
And I think that's
real progress.
>> Stephen Winick: That's great.
And you know, one thing that we
noticed in some of the concerts
that you helped us facilitate,
especially the [inaudible]
Quartet concert,
which is the one to which
this interview is linked,
that there's also
this third genre.
Right? There's the urban songs
alongside the traditional chants
and the folk songs, and then
a lot of groups are sort
of performing them
in the same context.
But in Georgia, do these
different genres appeal
to different people,
or are they sort
of all available to all singers?
And do you think Georgians might
have a different perspective
from the global audience
there on that question?
>> John Graham: Right,
so [inaudible] Ensemble,
the quartet, they're
just such good singers.
It's a pleasure to
be around them
and to be friends with them.
And I've known some several
of the members for years
and years now, 15-16 years.
And the other genre that you're
referring to that we featured
in the video are the
so-called urban songs
or [foreign language]
in Georgian.
And these are -- this is a
combination of Italian art songs
that came in the late
19th Century and melded
with Georgia nationalist
poetry and love poetry but sung
by Georgia and fantastic
singers.
So, it's more chromatic.
It has more Italianate style
harmony, but it also has a lot
of Georgian influences.
And this became the most
popular genre there at the turn
of the century, among
a more educated class.
So, a class of Georgian who
had access to Western music,
like the opera house,
the theater,
the new symphony orchestras
and choirs that were emerging
in the late [inaudible] empire.
But it quickly took off
and became a salon genre
that Georgians would sing
in their private homes
at private events and alongside
imported European arias
and [inaudible] and other,
you know, professional music
as one would find
in salons in Europe.
So, to this day, this repertory
of [foreign language]
is very popular,
and it's what one would most
likely hear in a household
if you were invited
for dinner or so forth.
So, my wife comes from a singing
family, both her parents sing,
and what do they sing?
They sing this [foreign
language] genre.
They'll sing it acapella.
They'll sing it with a guitar.
They'll sing it on a piano.
Their family members can
sing it with an accordion.
So, it goes, you can accompany
or you can sing acapella,
and it's fun.
And the texts are deeply
embedded in Georgian society.
They're written by the most
famous poets, [inaudible],
you know, these great poets
from the late 19th Century.
It's their texts that
are set to these kinds
of Italianate-style songs.
So, your question is,
how do Georgians
perceive all these genres?
Which did they prefer?
Are there different
segments of the population
that like this or that?
Of course, there are.
There's so much diversity,
and now with --
you know, with social media
and globalization is just
in full effect and you
have all different kinds
of music in Georgia.
Georgians, like everyone in
the world, are musical people.
You have -- there's -- a friend
of mine is a Western
country singer,
like the Texas country music,
and he sings it with
a Texas drawl.
We have hip hop ensembles here.
We have trance.
We have every type of genre.
You have Georgian ensembles
singing Corsican music
or South African music, you
know, not just other sort
of modern genres
or popular genres.
You have Georgians studying the
folklore of other countries.
Why not? Yeah, so that's --
it's a full marketplace now.
And Georgian's ethnomusical
people take advantage.
But if you ask -- if you were
to take a poll of all Georgians
and what's their favorite music,
I think [foreign language],
this urban genre of songs that
come from the 1870s and 1880s
and have -- and continue
to be composed to this day.
Every year, there are
a number of ensembles
that have a new arrangement
of a famous text,
or they have a brand new
[foreign language] song
to introduce, to sing
alongside the old favorites.
Think of it like a barbershop
genre that didn't get calcified
and stuck in its 1940s or '50s,
you know, position but continued
to evolve and remain relevant
to a broad segment of society.
I love barbershop quartet, but
it's really been pigeonholed
or stuck in one place, and
it's difficult to evolve.
Whereas this Georgian
genre continues to evolve
and become popular and we see
it on television all the time.
Like a New Year's
television segment
for the main television
stations, they brought
out ensembles like
[inaudible] quartet
to perform the old favorites.
>> Theadocia Austen:
I mean, that's so --
it's just beautiful stuff.
And it's -- I mean,
it's so romantic.
And it's got so much -- it's
got this combination of joy
and longing in it that
feels very Georgian.
>> John Graham: Yeah.
>> Theadocia Austen: But it's
-- yeah, it's beautiful stuff.
>> Stephen Winick: So,
I think we're getting
to the end of our time.
So, for one last question,
just because this is,
of course linked to the running
[inaudible] Ensemble's video,
and you were -- you
participated in that video.
So, what was that
experience like?
Just fill us in on
what you did there
and how you were part
of that experience?
>> John Graham: Well,
it was a privilege
to put together the show.
We were invited by Thea and
the team from the Library
of Congress to put
together this video,
considering that the
pandemic didn't allow
for live performances.
So, first, we had a
brainstorming session.
You know, what's -- how can we
best represent Georgian music?
Should we focus on one genre?
Should we focus on one region
and perform sacred and folk
and [foreign language] just
from say a Tbilisi region?
Or should we try and
do a bit of everything?
And how are we going to
present that visually?
Because these guys
are excellent singers.
Musically, I had no
question that it was going
to be phenomenal,
and I was right.
When we did the filming
of this, we never had
to do a second take
for musical reasons.
>> Theadocia Austen: Wow.
>> John Graham: They are so good
that every single thing you
saw there is first take.
But the videography, the
cinematography, we were filming
in winter, that was --
presented a lot more challenges.
So, we decided on
the three genres.
I put together the program
and proposed it together
with the quartet members.
And I said, let's put it in --
let's separate the three genres.
We'll film in three separate
locations, which were emblematic
of those genres or
symbolic in some way.
And we'll have different
costumes as well,
and I think that will give
the audience a quick snapshot
into Georgian singing culture.
So, of course, the churches
are so visually vibrant
with the frescoes and the
acoustics are fantastic.
And normally chanters would
be singing in vestments,
but we had the traditional
outfit the [foreign language],
so we just wore that
in the churches
as well and that looked good.
For the folk music segment,
we decided to sing outside
because a lot of folk music was
sung outside, and it was sung
in yards or in the fields
or on horseback or etcetera,
so that was a good place.
And we sung folk songs from
the kind of joking genres
of love genres and entertainment
songs that one would sing
with friends while
having a snack or a meal
on the side of the road.
And so, that was
the kind of ambience
that we tried to create there.
And then for the city songs,
a lot of times they happen
on stage, but I prefer when
they happen in the context
of the home around the meal.
So, I said, Is there any way
we could film this in a home?
How can we -- how can
we put that together?
Okay, if we're going to be
in the house, then we need
to be in regular clothes.
We need to -- we need to
have food on the table.
And we -- so we just
put on a supra,
which is a traditional feast.
We had the wine out.
We made the toast, and we
had two videographers there
with different angles, and they
just filmed for five hours.
And then later, we spent a week
in the editing room picking the
best bits and pieces and trying
to put it together, but it
was a lot of footage that went
into creating that
short little snapshot
of that [inaudible] Quartet.
And we were pleased
with the way it came
out despite some video graphic
and cinematographic
challenges that came along.
>> Stephen Winick: No, we
think it was beautiful.
It was great and
definitely the best snacks
of any homegrown video.
>> Theadocia Austen: Yeah.
Everyone was so hungry.
>> John Graham: Then I
tried to -- you know, my --
I didn't want to
take up any time --
I didn't want to take any
time away from the singing.
No, the singing is what we
should listen to, but sometimes
for an audience that's not
used to Georgian music,
all the singing will
start to blend together
and you won't necessarily
know what you're listening to.
So, I think it does help to
have a little bit of context,
like at least the theme of
the song, the genre of maybe
where it was sung, or in what --
you know, these types of things.
So, I tried to just insert
a little bit of commentary,
but I asked the videographers
to cut out most
of the things that I said.
And we tried to maximize the
singing as much as possible.
>> Stephen Winick:
Well, we're glad that we
that we had what we did have
of you introducing things
because I think it really does
enhance people's understanding,
as you say.
Otherwise, it would all kind of
blend together, and it's good
to have some perspective
on all that.
So, John, we just want
to thank you so much
for your participation
in the concert
and also in this interview.
>> John Graham: Thank
you for having me.
It's been a pleasure.
>> Theadocia Austen:
It's been great.
Thank you so much.