Gorani

Gorani is a group of nine Australian men who sing traditional songs from Georgia, to the East and Bulgaria, to the West of the Black Sea.

Songs include love songs, wedding songs, horse riding songs, church songs and even a song about the harsh life of a pair of bullocks and their driver.

They have appeared on national radio and TV in Georgia, Bulgaria and Australia.

The group started in 1992 following a workshop on Bulgarian men's village songs presented by the Boite and led by Bagryana Popov.

Celebrated Georgian ethnomusicologist Joseph Jordania joined the group in 1996 and sang with them for 15 years, steering their repertoire towards the diverse and dissonant sounds of Georgian polyphony.

Gorani has performed for The Boite, including memorable concerts at Hamer Hall, the Melbourne Town Hall, Collingwood Town Hall and Abbotsford Convent, for the National Folk Festival in Canberra, the Yakandandah Folk Festival and the Gertrude Street Projection Festival. This year they have performed at the Cygnet Folk Festival in Tasmania, Cresfest in Central Victoria, a fundraising concert for the Church of All Nations in Carlton and have presented in Warnambool a Georgian inspired Supra, a feast with impassioned toasting and singing. Gorani has performed at all but one International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony at the State Conservatoire, Tbilisi, Georgia which have been held biennially since 2002. The group has produced two CDs and is in the midst of a recording project.