events
concert & workshop
March 2019
Trio Kavkasia joined the Albion College Concert Choir and Briton Singers in a concert featuring Georgian folk and classical choral music, part of a four-day residency in which the trio worked with Prof. Clayton Parr and Albion College choral students. (The Briton Singers were preparing to travel to Georgia for a summer performance and study tour.)
Carl leads a Georgian singing workshop
The trio performing with the Briton Singers
Alan demonstrates the mysteries of Georgian tuning
Civilization VI: Rise and Fall
computer game soundtrack
July 2017
In 2017 Trio Kavkasia recorded the soundtrack for
the "Georgia" nation expansion pack of the
computer game Civilization VI: Rise and Fall.
The makers of Civilization VI periodically release new countries as add-on plug-ins to the game; the Georgia expansion was part of the round released in 2018.
Players who include "Georgia" in their game world meet the real-life Queen Tamar the Great (reigned 1184-1213)
as Georgia's game avatar and national leader, and every encounter with Georgia is accompanied by a selection of vocal and instrumental music provided by Trio Kavkasia.
Trio Kavkasia's one-day recording session with Geoff Knorr
in a small studio in Long Island City, NY.
The tracks for the Ancient Era feature Trio Kavkasia alone, presenting songs in traditional form, just as we sound in concert or on our albums. The soundtracks for the later eras (Medieval, Industrial, Atomic) were arranged by Geoff Knorr, an award-winning composer for video games and film, using the hymn Shen Khar Venakhi and the folk ballad Tsaiqvanes Tamar Kali -- the latter chosen in honor of the game avatar Queen Tamar. Geoff recorded our trio parts first, alone; then he added all the other instruments and massed voices to our tracks many months later in Prague.
The playlist during the game isn't linear; the tracks we recorded fade in and out or loop following a complex algorithm: as you encounter other nations their music starts to infiltrate yours and vice versa. If they dominate you, you hear more of their national music -- not a good sign for your prospects. And as Georgia advances in civilization from ancient to medieval to industrial to atomic, the musical mix changes gradually from the trio's plainest and most traditional vocal tuning and folk instruments to a smoother trio sound plus viola da gamba, and eventually to the trio plus massive choir and orchestra. You'd probably have to play against Georgia many times to hear all the tracks in some fashion.
Given what computer game sales are like (especially a global hit like Civilization VI), it's possible that tens of thousands of computer game fans will inadvertently hear Georgian music while playing the game; we hope at least some of them will become curious and want to know more about the country and its extraordinary music.
live movie soundtrack
September 2014 - March 2015
Four times in 2014 and 2015 on
opposite coasts Trio Kavkasia provided a full-length live soundtrack for Eliso, a landmark 1928 Georgian silent film directed by Nikoloz Shengelaia. The trio performed a score created especially for the film by Carl, using a variety of traditional Georgian songs.
In September 2014 the Museum of Modern Art in New York opened its Georgian cinema retrospective with Eliso. To perform the live soundtrack Trio Kavkasia was joined by members of the New York Supruli Choir. The screening / performance was attended by a large delegation from the Georgian government, including Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili, Ambassador to the U.S. Archil Gegeshidze, Minister of Culture and Monument Protection Guram Odisharia, and other members of the Georgian cabinet.
at MoMA with the Supruli Choir
In March 2015 Trio Kavkasia provided the live sountrack once more when Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, screened Eliso. The performance was sponsored by Bard College's Center for Moving Image Arts. The trio was again assisted by members of the New York Supruli Choir and friends.
In October 2014 the University of California's Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) screened
Eliso twice at the PFA Theater as part of its Georgian Cinema series. This time to perform the live soundtrack Trio Kavkasia was joined by friends from the Bay Area and elsewhere.
In February 2015 Trio Kavkasia once again provided the live soundtrack when the Film Department of the Smithsonian Museum's Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, screened Eliso as the opening event in its Discovering Georgian Cinema series. The trio was joined again by members of the New York Supruli Choir. Georgian Ambassador to the U.S. Archil Gegeshidze attended and introduced the event.
with an Egon Schiele in MoMA's
sculpture garden
January 2014
20-minute set at the Zlatne Uste Golden Festival,
Brooklyn
concert at Grace & St. Paul's Church,
Manhattan (with the New York Supruli Ensemble)
workshop and concert at Yale University,
New Haven
concert at the Church of the Holy City,
Washington, DC
workshop and concert at Princeton University,
Princeton (with the Princeton Georgian Choir)
workshop, children's program, and concert at
Crossroads Music, Philadelphia (with Svitanya)
Grace & St. Paul's Church
Washington: Carl and the Honorable Archil Gegeshidze, Ambassador of Georgia, being interviewed by the VOA
with Kitka in Santa Cruz
November 2011
concert at Texas State University in San Marcos
with the Texas State Men's Choir and
multimedia artists Irina Patkanian and Chris Langer.
February 2011
four concerts in the San Francisco Bay Area
with the women's vocal ensemble Kitka
in their series Caucasian Connections.
October 2008
two concerts in Toronto with the Toronto Consort
as part of the Consort's Marco Polo Project.
September 2008
workshop and concert at Swarthmore College
in Pennsylvania.
at Swarthmore College