Just as the calloused hands of a toiling man or the distinctly muscular legs of a football player reveal their line of work, Shorena Janiashvili’s entire being is an instant giveaway to the musician in her.
“I can’t live without music,” she tells Community, sitting in an empty restaurant of the hotel she has stopped by at in Doha, sounding like someone describing their inseparable lover, “Music is me, music is what is inside of me, music is what I am made of.” That’s perhaps why it’s all so palpable; a rhythm to her personality, an aura of an artiste, and a restless urge to break into a song.
Based in Vilnius, Lithuania, Shorena is the proverbial rockstar in two totally different realms. The Tbilisi-born Georgian singer-songwriter delves deep into the recesses of both, her soul and her homeland’s cultural core, in the mesmerisingly ambient Music of my Heart — a seven-piece band that gives old Georgian folk songs a thorough wash of rich jazz and world music treatment. With her other equally successful project, Shorena Rocks, she and her three mates hammer out an infectious mix of classic rock and groovy funk.
“Music of my Heart has soul energy, whereas Shorena Rocks is more about body energy, maybe,” the 20-something vocalist says, “While the former is meant for large concert halls, the latter is good to go at any club or stage that has an audience ready to let their hair down.”
As far back as she can remember, music was her destination. She studied law in Georgia, learned to play guitar and piano but never really took formal music training.
“When I was 20, I worked as a host for a music show on TV for teenagers. The show producers struck a deal with a Lithuanian TV channel. Around that time, I went to Lithuania for what was supposed to be just two weeks of work. I have already lived eight years in Lithuania now,” she says and chuckles.
Just when Shorena went to Lithuania, in 2008, a war broke out between Georgia and Russia. “There was an anti-war demonstration in front of the Russian embassy. The Georgian embassy called us and asked us to join the demonstration, in which the Lithuanian president was present as well. I was asked to sing Tavisupleba (Georgian national anthem) there. A producer from LNK TV station liked my singing and invited me to participate in a music competition. Eventually, I was invited to another televised singing competition, in which I finished third. What that experience helped me earn was the opportunity to work with great producers and amazing musicians.”
Soon enough, Shorena was winning awards and hearts across the nation and beyond. She even fine-tuned her vocal prowess by learning from the finest talents in the business.
“I believe in life experiences. I completed my academics and I know what theoretical knowledge is all about but it just can’t match the tremendous amount of insight and wisdom one gains on one’s craft by meeting and learning from artistes along the way,” she says.
Having sung Georgian folk songs and performed Georgian national dances right from her childhood, the calling became clearer by the day — Georgian folk music with a sophisticated, contemporary spin.
After connecting with some of the finest jazz musicians of Lithuania, including Lithuanian modern jazz musician and pianist Dimitrij Golovanov, Shorena had embarked on a boundless journey of repurposing Georgian folk music by injecting a heady shot of jazz into it. The themes of Music of my Heart range from a Georgian man’s love towards a Georgian woman, to a song about a mother who lost her child, or the beauty and magnificence of the Georgian mountains.
“It’s an ambitious project. We take old Georgian folk songs that are based on barely three or four notes and we weave lavish, layered compositions from it. But the soul of the song remains the same,” Shorena explains, “We travel a lot, playing at festival and expos across Europe and beyond. It’s an amazing adventure.”
Shorena’s deep, robust voice has a way of animating the faintest of emotions. When the Lithuanian press asks her about it, she jokes that probably, in her past life, she had a really hard time as all these feelings and emotions come from “somewhere deep inside of her, somewhere far away”. “I certainly put my everything into my first album Music of my Heart, which was released in October 2012,” says Shorena.
The idea was to concoct a musical synthesis such that the performance would stir up a moody atmosphere of a compelling fairytale, and everybody in the audience would be able to “feel” the music and the words. Music from the Heart, therefore, isn’t an exaggerated promise; it’s an exalted reality. “We try to be as true to the music as we possibly can. It’s a beautiful feeling to be able to connect with our music and our audience at such a deep level,” she says.
And then there’s the wholesomely untamed Shorena who sets the stage on fire with her livewire spirit, by inhabiting the head-banging, arms-in-the-air arena of Shorena Rocks. In fact, Shorena put out a quick, unpublicised rock show, last week, at a hotel in Doha with a Qatar-based Filipino rock band. Her singing and swagger on stage, with a band she had barely found time to rehearse with, was quite exceptional. “I had come to Doha to just take the city in, meet my friends and connect with other musicians. I love this country so much. I am feeling terrible about having to leave Doha so soon. I just couldn’t feel the time pass,” she says, laughing.
That certainly means she will return to Doha soon, and talks are already on for a concert later this year. “I won’t settle in Doha though. I can’t stay anywhere for long anyway,” she says, “I am a traveller, a wanderer. My concerts take me all over the world and I happily allow them to lead me wherever they want to.”