Ori Shalva
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07/07/2026
WEEKEND SINGING RETREAT
with ORI SHALVA
FRI AUG 7 - SUN AUG 9 2026
Georgian & Ukrainian Polyphony
At L’Ensemblitude Nature Centre · Sutton, Quebec
Workshops from $60-$275
Accommodations from $36-$60
SATURDAY NIGHT COMMUNITY SUPRA – A potluck feast based on the Georgian Supra centered around shared food, toasting, and communal singing.
No Georgian or Ukrainian needed
No music reading required
Harmony experience recommended
WHY THIS RETREAT IS UNLIKE ANY OTHER IN QUEBEC
Ori Shalva is a family trio – Canada’s foremost Georgian polyphony ensemble — led by Georgian-born tradition-bearer and virtuoso musician Shalva Makharashvili, alongside ethnomusicologist Andrea Kuzmich (a leading Canadian specialist in both Georgian and Ukrainian polyphony) and their son Shalva-Lucas. Teaching as a trio facilitates learning and means you hear the music as a whole — and absorb the authentic sound & subtle nuances more quickly and deeply.
REGISTER OR MORE INFO link in bio, www.MusiCampTO.com, or use the QR code
Slides 2-4 from 2026 workshops; slides 5-8 of L’Ensemblitude.
singingworkshop
06/26/2026
Thank you for making space for Georgian polyphony Toronto Jazz Festival ! ❤️
Thank you Sweet Beets Music for booking us 🥰
Thanks for all the lovely folks who listened. We made a lot of new friends 🇨🇦🇬🇪
🥂 Gaumarjos and Georgian folk songs!
🍷 გაუმარჯოს საქართველო და ქართული ხალხური სიმღერები
📸 Luba Platkin
🎥 Georgian Soul
🎥 Toronto Lutherie – Guitar Making School
06/17/2026
ORI SHALVA is part of this year’s Toronto Jazz Festival Sidewalk sessions
WED JUN 24 -
TWO SETS 7:15 & 8:15 PM
“The Rock” in Village of Yorkville Park
Step into a sound world rarely heard on Jazz Festival stages: the spellbinding, centuries-old polyphony of Georgia, brought vividly to life by Ori Shalva, a Toronto-based Georgian family ensemble.
Praised for their “amazing harmonies” by Eroll Nazareth on CBC Frequencies, Ori Shalva presents one of the world’s oldest vocal traditions
Led by Georgian-born virtuoso singer and multi-instrumentalist Shalva Makharashvili, the ensemble explores the depth of Georgian traditional music, where intricate, dense vocal harmonies give rise to shifting textures — from expansive unmetered passages to driving grooves and exciting moments of improvisational interplay.
Sounds Like Toronto Sounds Like the World presented by OLG
curated by Sweet Beets Music.
06/12/2026
TOMORROW
For over 25 years, Georgian songs have been shaping our lives.
Tomorrow, we’ll share them with you.
Before Words, There Were Georgian Songs
🎟️ June 13 | 8 PM
📍 Small World Centre
Final seats available.
Tickets: link in bio
06/11/2026
THIS SATURDAY
After over 25 years of Georgian songs…
we’re gathering for a special evening of Georgian polyphony at the Small World Centre
🎥 We’ll also be filming the performance - documenting this milestone year.
If you’ve been following the stories we’ve shared over the past month, this is where they lead:
into the songs themselves.
We’d love to share the evening with you.
🎟️ Before Words, There Were Georgian Songs
Saturday, June 13 | 8 PM
Small World Centre
Tickets: link in bio
Photo by Luna Choquette-Loranger Luna C. Loranger taken on Nov 21 2025 at Marie-Uguay Mundial Montréal
06/09/2026
For weeks, we’ve been sharing some of the moments behind the title Before Words, There Were Georgian Songs.
Today, we want to share the music itself.
On June 13, Ori Shalva will bring together songs that have travelled with us across decades, continents, and generations—songs shaped by village traditions, family life, and years of singing together.
If you’ve been following along, thank you.
If you’re wondering what the concert will actually sound like, this is a glimpse.
🎟️ Before Words, There Were Georgian Songs
June 13 | 8 PM
Small World Centre
Tickets: https://tickets.smallworldmusic.com/e/orishalva25th
info MusiCampTO.com
Grateful to .ca .marczyk for the video
WHEN THE POLYPHONY BELONGS
A car ride in 2013.
Shalva-Lucas was 10. Gabo was 5.
Moments like this happen because… before words, there were Georgian songs.
On Saturday June 13—less than a week away—we’ll share Georgian polyphony in the intimate acoustics of the Small World Centre.
🎟️ Before Words, There Were Georgian Songs
June 13 | Small World Centre
Tickets: link in bio
🙃🐎 btw, it’s a traveling song - but originally for horseback not a car 😉
LivingTradition TorontoMusic
THE SOURCE
In 2015, Shalva, Shalva-Lucas, and Gabo had the chance to sing with members of the Riho Ensemble from Svaneti, one of Georgia’s most mountainous and historically isolated regions.
For generations, these songs were carried from singer to singer in villages that were often cut off from the outside world for months at a time. The voices in this video belong to a tradition that has preserved some of the oldest layers of Georgian polyphony.
What moves us most is not the age of the songs, but their continuity.
The same tradition that echoes through these powerful Svan voices is the one that first brought our family together, the one our children grew up singing, and the one we will share on June 13.
🎟️ Before Words, There Were Georgian Songs
June 13 | Small World Centre
Tickets: link in bio
Returning from Svaneti, the mountainous homeland of the changi, in 2015.
Somewhere in an airport during a long layover, Shalva-Lucas starts playing a changi melody he heard in the mountains. Shalva sings quietly to help guide him. Then Gabo decides he also wants a turn.
No stage. No rehearsal. Just songs continuing to live where they always have — in passing moments, in travel, in waiting.
These are some of the sounds and stories we’ll be carrying into our June 13 concert at the Small World Centre.
🎟️ Tickets: link in bio
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