Recording has gone faster than we anticipated. I had a list of 20 songs to record, and the musicians ended up suggesting additional songs, for a total of 31 songs recorded in 5 days. Because the recordings will be learning tools, rather than professional quality tracks, we were more forgiving of small mistakes, but I was impressed by the level of knowledge and familiarity with so many songs. Hopefully a global conversation participant over in the states will post one of the raw recordings of Didebata, a circle dance/song (the internet connection here won't allow me to upload sound files), which will give you a little sense of what Svan music sounds like.
What's most exciting about this project is not the recordings of the choir as a whole, though - because each singer had his or her own mic, we were able to create tracks of individual voices. That way, someone listening to the final product could listen to the choir in its entirety, and then listen to a track of an individual voice to learn that individual's part. It'll take a while to edit these recordings, but Ensemble Riho has asked for a collection of the raw files, so that all the singers can learn some of the more obscure songs that just a few ensemble members still know (such as O Krisdeshi).
