Hamlet Gonashvili (Georgian: ჰამლეტ გონაშვილი) (20 June 1928 - 1985) was a Georgian singer (tenor), influential teacher and performer of traditional Georgian music. He is sometimes referred to as "the voice of Georgia".
Gonashvili was born in eastern Georgia and is considered the best interpreter of songs from the Kartli and Kakheti regions. He was a recipient of many national honours and prizes. The Third Symphony of the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli drew inspiration from Gonashvili's singing, and he was himself the soloist in the first recording of the work (Olympia Records, 1979). He died in 1985, at the height of his fame, as the result of a fall from an apple tree. Hamlet (JARO, 1985) is a collection of his most impressive songs.
Famous quotes containing the word hamlet:
“Shakespeare carries us to such a lofty strain of intelligent activity, as to suggest a wealth which beggars his own; and we then feel that the splendid works which he has created, and which in other hours we extol as a sort of self-existent poetry, take no stronger hold of real nature than the shadow of a passing traveller on the rock. The inspiration which uttered itself in Hamlet and Lear could utter things as good from day to day, for ever.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)