Obituary: Anzor Erkomaishvili (1940-2021)

Anzor Erkomaishvili died of COVID in Tbilisi at the end of March. His astonishing lifetime achievement as the Rustavi Ensemble’s founder encompassed a professional career of about 60 years. His task was a never-flagging revival of Georgia’s polyphonic folk song.

Both my mentor and friend, Anzor was known by his first name by all who encountered him. He began his adult life when traditional Georgian music was suppressed by the modernising Soviet Union. Luckily, the nation’s hospitality and feasting (always a complement to its singing) was never forgotten.

Anzor’s repertoire of orally-transmitted songs and ballads, not to mention ancient church chants, largely silenced from before Anzor’s birth, went right back to his grandfather’s time. Anzor started the song-rebuilding process with an early student group, Gordela, before founding Rustavi in 1968. This mature singing and dancing company, featuring repertoire from across the country, went on to tour the world to great acclaim.

But the Rustavi Choir was only part of his accomplishment, as he energetically shared Georgian song at home and abroad. After 1991, independent Georgia made musical connections with Europe, North America and especially Japan. The fruits of the vine in North America include (my group) Trio Kavkasia, the Kartuli Ensemble, Darbazi and more.

The first half of Anzor’s career produced a multi-LP set, 100 Songs, released in 1990 by the Soviet label Melodiya. 100 Songs is also the name of a traditional-music TV show he created. The next 30 years were even richer, with hundreds of songs recorded for Sony. For his 80th birthday last autumn, Anzor was honoured by a huge outdoor (because of the pandemic) concert; he and his cousin Tristan Sikharulidze sang the solo parts in a lively 'Khasanbegura' (a complex polyphonic song from Guria, west Georgia), which often closed the gigantic gala concerts he organised.

Anzor also supported a series of polyphony symposia in Tbilisi between 2002 and last year (online), with academic study and performances by experts and aficionados of Georgian song from far and near. I can attest to the attentive care with which Anzor mentored my trio, teaching us the best versions of his favourite songs back in 1995. His nation was barely standing after being locked in civil war; and Anzor himself was not well. But even from his sickbed, he gave us the beautiful phrases of his grandfather’s versions of the most energetic, almost free-jazz like counterpoint, from the Gurian region, his ancestral West-Georgian home. Then, the crowning moment: we were invited to the national sound stage and given the spotlight for a TV episode of 100 Songs.

My fondest memory is Anzor’s voice, coming from the recording booth as we started a song. We weren’t quite on the right track: "upro akt’iuri!" (more active/energetic), came the call! Many of us mourners and singers will long remember and feel the push of Anzor’s good humour and zealous enthusiasm, in service to the greater harmony.