Rustavi Ensemble

The Rustavi Ensemble, or the Georgian State Academic Ensemble, is a Georgian folk music ensemble that was created in 1968 by Anzor Erkomaishvili, a singer and folklorist from a distinguished Georgian musical lineage that goes back seven generations. Since its formation Rustavi has successfully toured more than 50 countries around the world.

Overview

Songs and dances for work and war, spectacular costumes, the unique Georgian style of polyphonic singing and rich voices characterize the Rustavi Choir. Their sacred hymns with their overlapping, continuously moving harmonies are spellbinding. Rustavi is also performing a high-quality comprising national and diverse traditional dances. Excellent costumes, brilliant performance, and elaborate choreography.

Erkomaishvili's vision was to break through ethnic boundaries of regional styles while performing ethnographically authentic music from all of Georgia. The Rustavi's performance style synthesizes the powerful, rough-hewn sound characteristic of the traditional regional folk choirs with a newer, cleaner, more finely-honed aesthetic whose orientation is towards concert presentation – nowadays on an increasingly international scale.

While striving to preserve, and in some cases recreate, authentic voicings and vocal timbres, the Rustavi singers have simplified the complex scales used by the earlier choirs in order to create firmer, more brilliant harmonies. The use of a smaller number of singers for certain songs has also helped to clarify their musical structure.

Awards

The UNESCO Pacha Prize has been awarded in 2001 to the Rustavi State Academic Ensemble of Singing and Dancing for the safeguarding and promotion of Georgian polyphonic singing in the Republic of Georgia.[1]

Recordings and performances

In August 1997, Rustavi performed a set of seventeen songs at the BBC Proms in London, under the direction of Erkomaishvili.[2]

In 1998, the group recorded the CD Mirangula under the name Rustavi Folk Choir, which has allowed for a wider appreciation of their music outside Georgia. This CD included the folk love song Tsintskaro which has had some popularity globally. The compilation record Georgian Voices sought to emulate the success of Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares by recording what could be sold to the Western world as a male version of the popular Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir.[3]

In September 2025, Rustavi performed again at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall, London.[4], as a part of a programme with mandolinist Avi Avital, that featured music from some of the countries that border the Black Sea.[5] Following this event, Rustavi also performed in Hastings, Sussex and in Warsaw, Poland.[6]

References

  1. ^ "UNESCO culture prizes awarded". 9 October 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-10-09.
  2. ^ Cowan, Robert (11 August 1997). "Proms: BBC SO / Jiri Belohlavek The Rustavi Choir Royal Albert Hall / BBC R3". The Independent. Retrieved 16 February 2026.
  3. ^ "GEORGIA: Georgian Voices - The Rustavi Choir". 30 December 2021. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  4. ^ "Avi Avital – Between Worlds @ the BBC Proms". Retrieved 15 February 2026.
  5. ^ "Avi Avital: Between Worlds" – via Proms 2025.
  6. ^ "Rustavi Choir and a Taste of Georgia" – via Hastings Independent Press.


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