Latin America to meet Georgia at The Spirit of Tengri

The Spirit of Tengri will take you places, from the proud beauty of Georgia with the music of The Shin band to lively exotic Ecuador with Yarick-Ecuador band on July 7th in Almaty.

It is the first time a native American ethnic band Yarick-Ecuador will perform in Kazakhstan. The band is unique as it revived ancient and almost forgotten music of South American natives. The street musicians formed the band in 2003. They wanted to revive the forgotten music and that is where they got the name from as Yarik is translated from Kechua language as “memory”. Harmonious and passionate melodies of Yarick-Ecuador take the listeners to the festive and hot Latin American land.

The band started touring and performing at ethnic music festival right after it formed. Later Yarick-Ecuador gained popularity in Europe.

Georgian fusion jazz band The Shin will also perform at the ethnic music festival in Almaty. The Shin combines jazz with Georgian folk melodies. The trio consists of Zaza Miminoshvili (guitars, panduri), Zurab J. Gagnidze (bass, vocals) and Mamuka Gaganidze (vocals, percussion).

“You can clearly trace their love of Georgia through their music. Despite the fact that they tour the world all the time, they represent Georgian ethnos and perform in this genre with such a love. It does not matter if they are in Germany or Georgia. They give a sense of always being at home. It is an acoustic band so they use only acoustic instruments without any electric instruments. It reminds of Georgian village music. It is worth coming to see them perform just to feel the spirit of Georgia,” a music scholar Iren Aravina said.

The Shin was formed in Germany in 1998. The name of the band "Shin" literally means "home" or "going home" in the Georgian language. The band represented Georgia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2014.

By Gyuzel Kamalova