I’ve spent the odd hour during lock down watching the Antiques Road Trip and therefore when one of the experts says that something that they have forund is Georgian, then I normally associate this with the period in British history from 1714 to c. 1830–37, named after the Hanoverian kings George I, George II, George III and George IV. However in this case I could not be more wrong. Our featured artists today hail from Georgia the country. It sits at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, is a former Soviet republic that’s home to Caucasus Mountain villages and Black Sea beaches.
Trio Mandili (“unison”) is a Georgian musical group which currently consists of Tatuli Mgeladze, Mariam Kurasbediani and Tako Tsiklauri. They perform polyphonic singing accompanied by a panduri, a traditional Georgian string instrument. They became popular in Georgia when they uploaded a music video in which they perform a folk-style ballad, one typical of Georgia’s highlands, specifically the northwestern Khevsureti region. It is the tale of a mystical encounter involving a young man called Apareka. This video, posted online, gathered over five million views.
Some social media users from Georgia, where harmonic singing is almost daily fare, had a hard time understanding all the fuss about the Mandili Trio’s video. And despite foreigners’ demands for the lyrics, even Georgian viewers had trouble understanding all of the lyrics. The trio sing in a Khevsur dialect, and some words are not clear to ordinary native Georgian speakers.
The name of the group was not chosen by accident. Mandili is a female headdress in the shape of a scarf. Traditionally, women threw a handkerchief to the ground when they wanted to reconcile the conflicting men. Whilst Tatuli acts as lead voice, Chincharauli and Tsiskarauli join in the chorus line as the song resounds in a three-part, dulcet harmony. In such harmonies, a mainstay of Georgian folk singing, the second voice carries the melody. The first voice follows in consonant thirds, while the bass mostly offers the root note of the chords. The tradition, richly embodied in the choral singing of the Georgian Orthodox Church, dates back to pagan times and is included in UNESCO’s list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
In 2015, Trio Mandili released its first album titled “With Love”. “Enguro”, the second album of the band has been released in 2017. New lyrical compositions to the accompaniment of popular folk instruments reveal the unique spirit of the picturesque Georgia and the breadth of the soul of the Georgian people. They have received international recognition for their music. Here they are performing in Poland – it is a long way from the simple had held videos that brought them to the attention of YouTube.
