VISIT OF THE GEORGIAN NOTE QUARTET IN KARLOVO AND KOPRIVSHTITSA

The Georgian State Note Quartet was a guest of  Trio Impressia of the Bulgarian Town of Karlovo, as well as of the Municipality of Karlovo in the days around the Rose Feast. They sang about ten songs on the stage of the central square during the evening concert on May 28. The next day they performed, together with the Impressia Trio at the the summer stage in the town of Koprivshtitsa.

What impressed me most about their visit in Karlovo?

Above all, their high class: four really beautiful and strong voices, three female and a male ones, all compelling and very professional. Given the attractive appearance and charm of each of the four the quartet would certainly be a honour at any of the most prestigious world stages.

I should say that probably there was a subjective reason for my delight: the Georgians sing my a mix of my favorite musical styles, i.e. ethnic, world, jazz and pop. And all this is Georgian, which means unique, colorful and beautiful - I can only compare it with the Brazilian world-ethnic-jazz-pop.

Their repertoire of around 30 songs is mainly based on the Georgian urban folklore. They also perform popular songs from other countries they have visited, including the Bulgarian song of Familia Tonika, with which they won the first place at Memories & Sea Festival in Varna.

However, they say in Georgia writing a song is expensive, 2000 lari (about 1000 euros), and therefore they complete their repertoire mostly on their own, by selecting and processing Georgian oldtime city songs, which  they change from one voice to four voice ones. Their songs are difficult because each of the quartet sings a different melody in the spirit of the Georgian tradition.

They mainly sing about love, as well a about their city Batumi , about Tbilisi ...

A question arose in my head during my short conversation with them (thanks for it to my friends of Impressia Trio and especially to Ivanka Baltova) was whether their calm and confident stage presence is due to government support to both them and Georgian culture in general . "State" before the name of the Georgian song and music ensembles means the performers are employed by the relevant government agency, as it was in Bulgaria before 1989. They receive salaries with the duty to be available to government organizations on formal occasions and concerts. Besides, certainly they can earn by private participation in concerts, weddings and other events.

Impressia Trio accidentally met with Note Quartet at a table in Varna, during one of the three participations of the Georgian Quartet at the Sea and Memories Festival. Happily, the Municipality of Karlovo covered financially their visit to the Rose Festival, despite its problems at the moment.

Karlovo audience seemed intrigued. and greeted them kindly. However, given how the people rapidly crowded together under the stage after Note leaved, in suspense of Sevdalina and Valentin Spasovi pop-folk duo, it is clear that the public has lost ear and taste for such music. There must have been no way for avoiding it, because ear and taste would develop by listening, they were something to built and educate in as they would say decades ago. Bulgarian both music and singers has been left to themselves for the last two decades. The Bulgarian culture is neither supported by the state nor can be realistically expected to develop as a successful business, given the size and economic capacity of our country. “Chalga” seems to be an exception; however many people suspect that it was imposed not just because of the mass taste and preferences, but as a result of any purposeful (perhaps conspiratorial) policy. It is known that almost every song, every style can become a hit if they keep on sounding in the media ...

And let us return to the Georgians. They said they felt at home in Bulgaria because people were as welcoming as Georgians, and the nature was the same. Well, there may be some difference since photos of their city include palm trees and old architecture looking like Mediterranean. Indeed, Batumi located on the southern Black Sea coast of Georgia, is the most important both sea and tourist town of the country, and may differ somewhat from the rest of it. A brief reference to Wikipedia shows higher temperatures to compared to Bulgaria; they have almost no winter nor snow.

My associations with Georgia have been preliminary linked with Stalin, Georgian folk dancers and a Georgian actress I would often watch on TV before 1989. In more recent times, I would be impressed by the strong performances of the Georgian representatives at Eurovision Song Contest. Even when a Georgian song was not among my favorites, I liked the confident and strong performance demonstrating a good condition of their music scene.

Beyond those stereotypes, I did not know much about Georgia and Georgians. Before the start of the "democratization", even though we were involved in the same so called "socialist camp" we were isolated from each other, and as sunflowers mainly watched to the center. Diversity of cultures and peoples we associated with the concerts mainly at Moscow stages, as well as with films from the different Soviet republics.Even after the „democratic changes“, we continued, somewhat due to the momentum to stare like sunflowers at the new „Big Brothers"...

The visit of  Note Quartet in Karlovo was for me a great incentive to seek online information about Georgia. Perhaps, the Eurovision 2012 in Baku will focus the attention of the Europeans not only on Azerbaijan but also on the entire Caucasus region. Thus many people like me will realize that Europe means not only Western Europe and Western (Anglo-Saxon) culture, and the continent continues to the east of the Black Sea, where Europe and Asia overlap.