Making Music with Musicians from Svaneti
How happy I was when – at the festival in Khobi in 2015 – I met my old friends from Svaneti, members of the ‘Rikho’ ensemble.
During my first trip to Svaneti, in 2010, I stayed for a week at the house of the wonderful family of Pilpani, who introduced me to the Svanetian singing and instruments. There, first time in my life, I saw and heard the magic sound of chuniri. The head of the family and the master of chuniri, Islam Pilpani showed me the basics of playing it. No wonder that I started to dream about my own chuniri and only one week later the dream came true: I got back home with my own chuniri, hand made by Vakhtang Pilpani.