Zura Kiknadze’s Music Soiree

Zura Kiknadze is a 42-year-old singer and composer who plays on acoustic guitar. You can catch his performances at the Zazanova café-restaurant every Tuesday. GEORGIA TODAY went along to meet him.

When did your collaboration with Zazanova begin?

 I’ve been playing here for four years. I started out playing in a duo, then I appeared with Tako Davitashvili, a singer on keys, and Tornike Gordadze on drums. I started playing a solo repertoire around three years ago.  

Does the repertoire change every week?

Basically, yes. I play covers as well as my own compositions. We, me and the Zazanova team, get on perfectly well in terms of musical taste, and they leave me free to offer the audience whatever I wish. There are a lot of clubs in Tbilisi for those who wish to entertain but it’s not my niche as I don’t go for commercial material: I focus more on high quality, tasteful music and try to offer the audience something new.

How do you choose what to play?

I never know beforehand: it depends on the feeling I get from the public. I already have a loyal following, people aged 20 to 70, who like high quality music. Sting is the ‘best-selling’ musician for this format. I will definitely play ‘Shape of my Heart’ and ‘Fragile,’ tonight. I try to respond to the terms of cover performance, which implies that it should be a performer’s interpreted version and not a copy-paste.

Sometimes, I play Georgian songs, for instance, ‘Suliko’. The interpretation depends on the voice timber and character of a performer. Sometimes, there are some songs that I perform that the audiences listen to for the first time. In this case, soirees become something informative, too.

Do you plan any overseas work?

I was recently offered production by a producer from Canada who works here in Georgia. I’m preparing for it now.    

By Maka Lomadze