new music, new friends

[chelidon]

I am loving this winter production I'm in -- the cast and crew are brilliant, the artistic director is one of the brightest spirits I've met in a long time, and the music he and the musical directors selected is incredibly gorgeous, and quite an unusual set of pieces. Learning and memorizing 30 pieces in 10 weeks, 2/3 of which are in Russian, Georgian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian, etc, is rather a challenge (and we're all supposed to be completely off-music within about 2 weeks, yikes), but it's a really good stretch for me as well. Some of the pieces are sweet and purely beautiful, like delicate snowflakes, and others are extremely...virile. Some of the harmonies are so exquisitely non-western, fiercely powerful and go right to your heart. And in the rehearsal process, I get more fun hang-out time with housemates -- one of my Lovely Housemates is a singer (soprano, natch), and another is doing set design and production. It's also been a good way to integrate more fully with the local performing arts crowd, and this production company is special -- many of them have been active in it for 5, 10, 20 years, very much a family atmosphere, real fun, camaraderie and loyalty there.

The directors are sticklers for accuracy, but thankfully, we have native speakers in most cases for coaches. Georgian pronunciation, in particular, is...a challenge. [Edit: last night was the first makeup test, and I was one of the guinea pigs (as was one of my Lovely Housemates)-- the head of the makeup team is a real pro, is using a palette of browns and earth-tones livened with Russian-doll-like highlights and strong lines to make us look like characters in a wood-block print. The overall effect was so cool I had them powder it so I could wear the makeup home to show it off ;>]

This is one of the pieces we learned last night -- a transition piece, kind of a throw-away, very short, but lovely all the same. The words translate roughly as, "Our host is happy and blessed, because he has beloved guests..." I may have to use this for the next bardic circle here, maybe as a duet with my housemate. You can see what I mean about the language...whee.

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Maspindzelsa mkhiarulsa (Georgan table song, Imereti, western Georgia)

Maspindzelsa mkhriarulsa hqavs st'um rebi saqvarlebi, delo ranina
Ghmerto ghmerto gagviravde chven st'umrebi saqvarlebi delo ranine nanina.

Ghmerto nu ras nu moushli, rats rom hqavdes saqvarlebi, delo ranina
Ghmerto ghmerto gagviravde chven st'umrebi saqvarlebi delo ranine nanina.

Comments

[eregyrn.livejournal.com]

Hey -- do you have a URL that gives info on the performance? (Dates, times.)

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

sure thing: http://www.revelsnorth.org/ (scroll down the homepage)

The Casa will be going to one or the other afternoon performances, so Forest will get full enjoyment of it. It would be so great to see you there!

Also, looks like no bardic in November (just too busy), but a big New Year's party, if you'd like to come out and participate in the mayhem!

[anthologie.livejournal.com]

I listen to Kitka sometimes - they are an Oakland ensemble that sings strictly Eastern European folksongs. I love their music, and have found that the languages of that region are extremely comforting to me, despite the fact that I have no personal cultural connection to it.

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

mmm, yes, there's some powerful music there... I do have ancestry there, though it's not the side I've explored as much as, say, the Irish. I have fond memories, though, of attending my grandparent's Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches with them, the clouds of pungent incense, the liturgy rolling over me in half-understood rumbles and waves, the incredible music of the male choir, basso angels every one.

I find that singing that music does stir things up in me, perhaps in part due to the ancestral connection, perhaps just because it's wonderful, and unusual (in terms of structure and harmonies, etc).

[anthologie.livejournal.com]

I think there is something very important in the kinesthetic act of speaking aloud and pronouncing words (especially ones not in one's own tongue). My favorite by far to do this with is Tolkien's Sindarin - sometimes I just open up the dictionary I have of his languages and pick out words and say them to myself, but I found myself pronouncing some of the words in the Georgian song you posted. They just have such good "mouth feel."

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, yes, yes. I assume you're familiar with the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_Hypothesis)? (in fact, didn't we discuss it in length at some point in a prior life?)

Interestingly, whether genetics or childhood memories, my pronunciation of Russian, Bulgarian, Georgian, etc, seems to come very naturally.

I think the Catholic Church lost a lot of juice to their mass when they dropped the Latin. But then again, I'm a big fan of Latin.

[anthologie.livejournal.com]

I'm familiar with it, but the jury's still out as to whether I buy it. I know plenty of people who think in pictures or shapes or colors and who can't translate those verbally into something that has any meaning outside their own heads. (But it would take a psychologist to determine whether this is a way to escape real communication or not.) Certainly with as well as I know language, there are certain concepts even I have trouble expressing when I get right down to it. Sometimes a color or a texture or a sound -- god, especially sound -- expresses it more accurately.

For what it's worth, I'm part Welsh, and have trouble pronouncing Welsh words, but _not_ Sindarin, which is _based on Welsh_. I'm also German and Irish and don't much care for the sound of either Gaelic or German. ;)