Singer Manana Menabde to perform for Hamburg academy audience

An art venue in northern German city Hamburg is set to host a musical performance by celebrated artist Manana Menabde, whose renditions of Georgian folk songs have earned her critical recognition at home and abroad.

The Alfred Schnittke Academy of the coastal city, named after one of 20th century's great composers, will host the  artist best known for her live vocal performances of Georgian and Russian songs.

Manana Menabde opens a world that transcends national boundaries and in which a language accessible to every seeker is circulated", said a preview for the performance by the hosts.

On July 20, as an introduction for the performance, visitors of the academy venue will be addressed by Marika Lapauri-Burk, musician and founder of the Hamburg-based German-Caucasian cultural association Lile.

The multi-faceted artist is best known for her vocal performances on guitar. Photo: Manana Menabde artist Facebook page.

Lapauri-Burk will introduce the audience to the history of Georgian folk and urban song tradition, embodied by Menabde who was born in the family of the celebrated Ishkhneli Sisters ensemble in 1948.

Graduating from the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts in Moscow, Menabde went on to have her musical work featured in cinema and concert performances.

Her songs were one of the highlights of filmmaker Lana Gogoberidze's feature Day Is Longer Than Night, screened at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.

Menabde also released four albums including a 2004 recording of her performances of songs by Soviet poet and musician Bulat Okudzhava, who was known for mixing the Russian folk song traditions with the French chansonnier performances.

Menabde has been awarded the Mikheil Tumanishvili Georgian State Prize for "perfection in arts". Photo: Georgia's Culture Ministry press office.

Based in Germany for an extensive period starting 1991, Menabde is known to local audiences of folk songs. Last year she performed along with musician Ingeborg Freytag for listeners at the Women's Culture Centre in Leipzig.

She has also excelled at varied art forms including poetry, photography and painting.

Highlighting the artist's diverse talents, an exhibition of her photographs was held at Ioseb Grishashvili Tbilisi History Museum, also known as Karvasla, in 2016.

In recognition of her artistic career Menabde has been awarded the Mikheil Tumanishvili Georgian State Prize in 2015. The prize is bestowed on select artists for "perfection in arts".

Menabde's performance in Hamburg comes at the time of ongoing year-long celebrations of 25 years of diplomatic relations between Georgia and Germany.