who asked the first question? - International Research Center For ...

conversations with the leading Russian physical anthropologist Valeri Alexeev at hisMoscow apartment. Valeri Alexeeev’s untimely and unexpected death in November 1991cut short our promising plans for collaboration between a physical anthropologist andethnomusicologist on several important topics. To the memory of these two outstandingscholars and humans, Valeri Pavlovich Alexeev and Malkhaz Abdushelishvili, the mostinterested and the most critical would-be-readers of this book, I wish to dedicate thisbook.And of course, my big thanks should go to the members of my family, almostcompletely consisting of musicians and ethnomusicologists. If not for them, I could wellbe now involved in something like research of a dwindling tiger population in a SiberianTaiga. Starting from my father, Mindia Jordania, a brilliant ethnomusicologist, who wasmy first teacher and my first major influence in ethnomusicology (although he died whenhe was 49 and I was 25, before my work extended to comparative issues and other thanethnomusicology fields), my mother Nelly and my grandmother Tamara for their constantencouragement, my brother Nugzar and his wife Marina, both ethnomusicologists, whosesharp minds and keen eyes guided me into a few new topics, and their daughter Tamuna,a musician with an astounding ear. And of course, the biggest friend of my life, NinoTsitsishvili, who was writing her own article for the journal “Ethnomusicology” andpreparing the draft of her book at exactly the same time as the writing of this book. Herthoughtful suggestion to prepare family dinners in a call-and-response manner saved ourmental health and lead to occasional long discussions on various topics of both books inprogress. Big thanks to our son Sandro for enduring living with parents endlessly sittingat the computers. Thanks also to my daughters, Maggie and Nana, and grandchildren,Niko and Manana, for giving us the comforting feel of the continuation of the great Circleof Life.And at the very end, thanks to our two cats, Gizmo and Socky, my onlycompanions on long winter hours spent in a backyard Bungalow. They are still sittingnext to me, as I write these words, giving me the so much needed connection to thenatural world that surrounds us.21