1. Are there any traditional rituals/ceremonies associated with songs in Wintersongs repertoire?

Wintertime in traditional Eastern Europe is a time for reflection, celebration, and community—a time to express hopes for the return of the light, and health, wealth, and fertility in the year to come. Winter is also a time for fortune telling for village women, when future marriage arrangements are predicted or secured. The tradition of caroling is quite universal and was/is intricately connected to the very survival of a traditional rural community. Carols were often specifically addressed or dedicated to each member of a household and offer specific wishes for that person. For example, a young unmarried woman in Bulgaria might be sung a “Koleda” song that foretells of a marriage to a rich merchant (see track 15 “Hubava Milka”). A carol offered to a young unmarried man of the house bestows wishes for health, a royal lifestyle, and future domestic security and harmony (see track 16 “Tsarsko Momche”). The well-known Ukrainian melody “Shchedrik” (Track 19; popular in America as the “Carol of the Bells”) is addressed to the master of the house and sings a vision of a flock of healthy and fertile animals, a big pot of money, and a fine-looking wife.

More than just singing for the sake of merriment, caroling served/serves a very real and essential social function. Winters in rural Eastern European villages were/are extremely harsh and mere survival through the season was a struggle to achieve. A culture of interdependency and sharing of resources was/is key to getting through the winter. Everyone in a village knows, and must know, everyone else’s business: Who is sick, who has a newborn baby, whose cow is producing the most milk, who will have extra meat or wheat, or wood or coal to fuel a fire for warmth. Caroling serves the function of having neighbors visit each other to bestow blessings, check in, and share and exchange food, money, and other resources... reinforcing relationships in the community.

There are countless regionally specific rituals tied to the season. I'm particularly fond of the Kukeri processions common in parts of Bulgaria. Some Bulgarian villagers traditionally considered the days between Christmas (Koleda) and the Christ child’s baptism (Jordanovden) “unclean” and haunted by raving wild forces that wandered in the long dark nights. Women were forbidden to bathe, spin, or weave, and no one dared venture outside before the first cock’s crow. During the days however, rowdy carnival processions of beast-masked, cowbell-bedecked men (Kukeri) bearing decorated sticks and swords filled the streets to dispel evil spirits.

2. What are the most significant traits of the music you perform that distinguishes it from other vocal traditions?

Well, it is difficult to generalize, since singing styles vary drastically and subtly from country to country, region to region, and singer to singer. But, that said, much of Kitka’s repertoire utilizes what we call an “open voice” that contrasts markedly from the Western classical “Bel Canto” style and more familiar folk style. The open voice has a very forward placement in the mask of the face and uses the full body for resonance. It is a style of vocalization that is much closer to speech than to what we typically think of as singing. Vibrato is less a part of the tone and more used as ornamentation. And there is a huge vocabulary of intricate ornamentation in each regional style.

Much of the music from the Balkans that we sing is colored by the generous use of dissonant intervals (major and minor 2nds and microtones) that often ring out against vocal drone parts. These diaphonic songs produce some hair-raising  effects that many more contemporary Eastern European composers have incorporated into sumptuously harmonized modern choral settings of traditional melodies. There is also widespread use of heterophony; a traditional form of polyphony that is more modally based and less based on Western European concepts of harmony. Then there is traditional Georgian and Albanian polyphony; perhaps among the oldest forms of polyphony on the planet. These ensemble singing forms defy the rules of classical music theory and modal heterophony all together.

Balkan rhythms are also famous for their odd and complex meters, mostly rooted in elaborate village line dance traditions. Many of Kitka’s songs are in time signatures such as 5/8, 7/8, 9/8, 11/16, 15/16, etc. Tunes in these meters produce either a hypnotic or maniacal effect, depending on the tempo.

3. Any theories why / how some of these musical characteristics evolved? 
Some of my (and other’s) theories include... Throughout history, the Balkans (just to mention one region) have been an amazing crossroads between East and West. The Ottoman Empire occupied the Balkans for more than 500 years (until the late 1800s), so the influences of Turkish music—modes/makams--elaborate ornamentation, etc. are widespread. There was a huge Romani (“Gypsy”) migration into and through the Balkans about 1000 years ago, so complex rhythms, more modes/ragas, and more ornamentation from India infused local music. Then there was the heterophony of traditional Slavic music coming in with invasions from the North, merging with traditional polyphony from Epirus (northern Greece/Macedonia) from the South, and Georgia (from across the Black Sea).

Much of the music seems to reflect the landscape from which it comes. For example, if one looks at songs from the Pirin Mountain region of Bulgaria or Macedonia, the sharp “yips” and jagged quavers that characterize traditional songs here seem reflective of the rugged pointed mountains that characterize that locale, whereas if you travel a little bit East to the lower, lushly forested and round-topped Rhodope mountains, you find songs that are much more broad with smoother ornamentation and lots of curved, slow glissandos (slides). Certainly regional differences in vocal styles have a great deal to do with the natural environment as the mountains (Balkan actually means “mountain” in most South Slavic languages) served as very hard to penetrate natural barriers between communities. So there are huge local differences in song styling and dialect throughout the region.

Most of these songs come out of agricultural communities, where most work was done out-of-doors. Harvest songs were sung antiphonally by groups of women working at opposite ends of a field so they needed to project their voices across long distances. Parallels can also be drawn between the sound of an Eastern European “open voice” and other “mountain musics” such as Appalachian singing.

4. Are there certain emotions that are easier to express using these musical techniques, rather than techniques from Western Europe?

The open voice definitely produces a “from the gut” emotional effect, capable of expressing extremes of joy and grief and everything in between. Countless people tell us that the sound of open voice singing just gets right inside, grabbing one’s heart out and squeezing hard. Many of us in Kitka became smitten with this sound upon first hearing, and many of us recount how we couldn’t stop crying after hearing this style of singing for the first time. It still often happens that we’ll just break down in tears when listening to or working with a great master folksinger from this tradition. The overtone-rich vibration produced by this vocal technique is very powerful; simultaneously strong and sweet; a wall of sound with windows of vulnerability...

There is something also very natural and authentic about this style of singing; much more human and perhaps more intuitively accessible than the highly mannered and technical Western Classical style or the showy emotionalism of typical pop song performance (though certainly great folk singers have amazing technical chops too!).

5. What are some of the most profound stories of Kitka on past tours?

Oh, there are so many. Perhaps the most memorable experience was when we were invited to sing as “international guests of honor” at the 50th Anniversary Gala Concert of the incredible Bulgarian women’s choir “Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares” at the 5000-seat National Palace of Culture in Sofia in June of 2002. The hall was packed with Bulgaria’s greatest singers, instrumentalists, composers, folklorists, ethnographic scholars, political figures, etc. The concert was being broadcast by Bulgarian National Television with simulcasts all over Europe. Needless to say, we were very hyped and a little bit nervous given that we were all Americans who, out of passionate love for Bulgarian music and culture have adopted it and in so doing, made it somewhat our own. How would we be perceived by the Bulgarian public and all these experts in this form? We began our section of the program with the piece “Pilence Pee” from the repertoire of Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, an incredible complex choral setting of a folk motif by the great Bulgarian composer Krasimir Kyurkchiyski (who was, of course, present). We began the song and within seconds of the opening chords the crowd was going wild, cheering, clapping, standing on their feet. It was a tremendous validation and a great relief too. If we had made a mistake in the piece, certainly no one heard it through all the din in that hall! Then of course there was the phenomenal experience of joining voices with the Bulgarian Women’s Choir for the numbers we sang together. We made such a huge sound. It was hard to keep our feet on the ground.

What this experience made us realize was that we were in fact giving something very tangible back to the cultures from which we draw our inspiration. American pop culture is truly invading and overtaking so many traditional forms of expression. In general, young people in Eastern European villages, towns and cities are much more interested in Britney Spears than in the traditional songs their grandparents sang in their youth. Anything American is coveted, anything native is frowned upon as provincial. There is a pervasive feeling that folklore is endangered or dying out in the region and that it is being preserved, cultivated, developed and valued more so outside the country than within it.

Less high profile, but perhaps even more inspiring was the time we spend in Bulgaria after the big “Le Mystère” Gala concert. Various singers from the choir invited us to their homes, where we were wined (with abundant Bulgarian moonshine called “Rakia”), dined, and sung to and with endlessly into the wee hours of the morning. Kremena Stancheva, one of the Bulgarian choirs senior soloists then took us all to her native village of Kovachevtsi, where we lived for a week, collected songs from the village Grannies, heared and experienced local paranormal lore from the village’s very interesting mayor (her name was Jagoda: “Strawberry”) and learning from our village hosts how to grow the tastiest cucumbers and tomatoes on the planet. Then there was the “banitsa bakeoff” a party where each Baba (Granny) from the village brought over her totally unique version of the classic Bulgarian buttery feta-cheese and filo pastry for us to sample and evaluate; we’re still working off those extra pounds (for more on our Bulgarian trip check out http://www.Kitka.org/features/index.html).

Of course there are many more stories...

6. Are there any classic Kitka stories involving cross-cultural confusion, humor?

The most common blooper is that we are mistaken for being Eastern European, often times audience members (including native Eastern Europeans) approach us after concerts to comment on how perfect our English is! There was one stop on a tour when our hosts took great pains to serve us a traditional American dinner with BBQed burgers, pineapple, and other American standbys...

Then of course there are all the experiences that happen when hanging out with Balkan people, where the whole experience is colored by consuming much more alcohol than we normally do.

Another cute memory was in 1988 when we were driving around the singers of the Bulgarian Women’s Choir during their first US tour. Communism hadn’t fallen yet and they were overwhelmed by all the shopping opportunities offered by America. Of course most of them had kids that they wanted to bring gifts home to. Most of them didn’t speak, let alone read much English, but there were certain familiar words. As we pulled into a strip mall our Bulgarian passengers started screaming out “What means TOYS YAH US?” (The Bulgarian character for the sound “YAH” is a backwards “R.”)

7. Tell us about the instrumentalists that will be joining you on this tour.

Rumen “Sali” Shopov will be playing the Bulgarian and Macedonina tambura, a long-necked teardrop-shaped mandolin/folk lute with 4 double courses of strings tuned like a guitar. This instrument is most popular in Rumen’s native Pirin region. Rumen also plays the Greek bouzouki and is a master of the Bulgarian double-headed drum, the tupan. The tupan is made of a wooden barrel with stretched goatskin heads and is played with a heavy wooden beater on one side and a light thin stick or “switch” on the other. Tupans probably traveled with Romani musicians to Turkey during their initial exodus from Northern India. The thunderous sound of tupans (called dauli in Turkish) was used by the Ottoman militia during military advances to instill terror in the areas that were being conquered. Today these drums are played throughout Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, and parts of Romania as the rhythm keepers in traditional dance bands, and are also part of traditional Romani wedding zurna (loud outdoor folk oboe) and tupan wedding ensembles.

Also joining us on this tour will be Kaila Flexer on violin and Tobias Roberson on dumbek (a goblet-shaped drum), tupan, and defi (frame drums).

Additional Info
A Landscape of Sound and Tradition from Eastern Europe: Vocal ...
Things to Know About Kitka: A Fact Sheet
Question and Answer with Kitka Vocalist and Executive Director Shira ...
Accompanist biographies, Wintersongs tour

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