Zaza Miminoshvili – guitar
Zurab Gagnidze – vocals, bass
Mamuka Gaganidze – vocals, percussions
Valts Puce – vocals, accordion
Kristine Karkle-Purina – vocals, violin
Ilona Dzerve – vocals
Aleksandr Chumburidze – dance
The Shin is a Georgian fusion band formed in Germany in 1998. The Shin comprises three exceptionally talented professional musicians and composers. The music of The Shin smoothly combines Georgian folk melodies with jazz, famous native polyphonic singing with scat, Oriental tunes and flamenco with a modern Western sound.
Shin means ‘home’ or ‘going home’ in the Georgian language. In their homeland Georgia, the trio has long been ranked the artistic elite; in collaboration with Guy Kancheli and other professional composers and musicians The Shin takes part in music creation and recordings for the theater and the cinema.
Internationally acclaimed Georgian ethno-jazz band The Shin is already known and loved by Latvian audience from their numerous performances at the World Music Festival Porta, performing both, on their own and together with Latvian musicians: with the Owl’s ethnographic orchestra creating the wonderful Latvian & Georgian collaboration ‘Me, too’, which in 2009 was awarded the Latvian Annual Music award.
At this years festival, the audience will have a rare opportunity to witness the totally unique and wonderful fusion of Georgian and Latvian etno music tunes, accomponied by Georgian dance performed by Aleksandr Chumburidze. Historically, Georgians tend to strive for excellence. And this trend is very much portrayed not only in their music but also in their folk dances with vigorous and complicated movements.