Women’s ensemble, Nanina, from the country of Georgia, are touring the UK during September 2025, teaching and performing polyphonic songs, and appearing as guests of honour at a weekend festival of Georgian polyphony.
Nanina are one of the foremost women’s ensembles from the country of Georgia, with a wealth of experience as singers and teachers. Nanina have toured internationally on a number of occasions, but this will be their first visit to the UK.
In addition to being seasoned singers, musicians and teachers, the members of Nanina are also professional musicologists, who, for three decades, have been researching, documenting, and popularizing traditional Georgian music, including songs from every musical dialect across Georgia. Their warm and engaging performance style springs both from their deep knowledge and passion for the music of their homeland, but also from their connections with each other, having been friends and singing together since their student years at the Tbilisi State Conservatoire in the 1990s.
Their performances feature unique songs, performed by no other ensembles, and include traditional Georgian instruments such as the stringed chonguri, chuniri and panduri, and the Georgian accordion, the garmoni. All of this is accompanied with traditional folk dress and dance, with concerts ranging across cradle songs, healing songs, work songs, wedding songs, mourning songs, ritual songs, and playful songs.
TS’UTISOPELI FESTIVAL + OTHER TOUR DATES
The centrepiece of the tour will be a weekend event, called ts’utisopeli, at which singers from across the UK will gather to learn and sing together, and to share a supra, or Georgian feast. Workshops throughout the tour will be planned to help us prepare for the supra evening, when we eat, drink and sing together at the supra table.
For details and tickets for the ts’utisopeli weekend, and links to other tour dates, visit the main tour page.
GEORGIAN POLYPHONY
Georgia, in the Caucasus mountains, boasts a rich and ancient UNESCO listed tradition of complex polyphony. Like Georgia itself, the music sits at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, yet has its own, truly unique character. It blends challenging, dissonant and microtonal chords with sweet and lyrical close harmonies. Ancient pagan, shamanic ritual songs with soaring liturgical chants. Powerful work songs, rousing wedding songs, and modern, composed songs all continue this music into the present day. Encompassing thirteen regional styles, the music from the east and west of Georgia are quite distinct, with that of the Gurian region on the Black Sea coast being particularly complex, and often including a fourth, yodeling voice, known as krimanchuli.
