Photo series: Pankisi Ensemble by Dmitrii Zverev, as part of Hidden Musics

Photo series: Pankisi Ensemble by Dmitrii Zverev

Friday Aug 4th 2023

This year, Le Guess Who? presents the fourth edition of Hidden Musics, a project that focuses on deeply localized music and features artists embedded in rich, often centuries-old musical traditions that have been developed with little or no outside influences. The first series was initiated in 2019 by Le Guess Who? in collaboration with Chris Eckman (Glitterbeat Records) and GRAMMY Award-winning producer Ian Brennan.

This year, Le Guess Who? is bringing the Pankisi Ensemble, a traditional music group from Georgia, to Utrecht as part of Hidden Musics.

Photography by Dmitrii Zverev

Hidden Musics Photo

The Pankisi Ensemble is an all-female traditional Chechen music group from the Pankisi Gorge, Georgia. The group is committed to preserving and developing lesser-known vocal and instrumental Chechen music that is rarely heard outside of their own community. These include epic legends, sufi religious chants and love songs.

<a href="https://oredrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/pankisi-ensemble-music-of-kists-chechens-of-georgia">Pankisi Ensemble - Music of Kists, Chechens of Georgia by Pankisi Ensemble</a>

The Pankisi Ensemble presents a unique representation of the shared and distinct musical cultures of the Caucasus, including Georgian music, Chechen songs and the folklore of different regions of Georgia. Appreciating these sounds and careful not to slide into a banal 'ethno-fusion', these young musicians are constantly evolving and not afraid to experiment with the musical traditions they so admire.

Bela Mutoshvili, founder of the Pankisi Ensemble.

View the full photo series here.

Hidden Musics - Le Guess Who? 2023
This year, Le Guess Who? will bring the following musicians to Utrecht as part of Hidden Musics: Pankisi Ensemble, an all-female traditional music group from Georgia, who preserve and develop lesser-known genres of Chechen music that are rarely heard outside of their own community; Sophie Nzayisenga, the first female master of the Inanga, a traditional stringed music instrument; Rwanda’s The Good Ones, a band that was formed as a healing process after the genocide and with the original members reuniting Rwanda’s Tutsi, Hutu, and Abatwa tribes; and "the man with singing fingers”, Rəhman Məmmədli, whose blazing, psychedelic guitar music sprang from one of the most tumultuous and transformative periods in Azerbaijan’s history.

Pankisi Ensemble performs live at Le Guess Who? 2023 on Friday, 10 November.

Photography by Dmitrii Zverev