|
|
 |
Songs to Warm Your Winter Nights
|
| Click Here to go back. |
Crosswinds Weekly, Songs to Warm Your Winter Nights >>
by Julia Miller
For centuries maybe even since the beginning of human experience people have sought warmth and comfort through music and song during the cold, dark winter months. Music plays a major part in almost every religious tradition, whether you're Christian, Jewish, Hindu or a celebrant of the winter solstice.
None of the seasonal holidays would be complete without their own distinctive songs of celebration. This weekend, the eight-member a cappella women's vocal ensemble Kitka comes to Popejoy Hall for an evening of inspiring, mystical and spiritual songs with a sea sonal theme in a program called Wintersongs.
Kitka, which means "bouquet" in Bulgarian, has been singing in various incarnations since 1979. The group began in the San Francisco Bay Area as an outgrowth of West Wind, a traditional folk dance ensemble performing Bulgarian dances accompanied by vocals. "The songs were so completely fun to sing, [Kitka became its own entity," says Shira Cion, Kitka's executive director and one of the group's performers. Although none of the original singers remain in the current lineup, there are many who've been with the group for long periods; Cion herself has been singing with Kitka for 17 years.
The group is as diverse as the various cultures of the music they perform; there are doctors, lawyers, teachers and artists among the ensemble. Some have been classically trained and some began as folk dancers but all are united by a common passion for this strange and beauti ful music. The group performs about 60 concerts every year, an average of one week per month. "Everyone does something else," says Cion. Some members belong to other singing groups, and others are lucky enough to manage their careers around Kitka's tour schedule.
The repertoire expanded as the singers became more serious about performing it; over the years, they've gathered music from a wide range of world cultures from Albania to China, and they perform the songs in more than a dozen languages. "The songs are 'found' in a variety of different ways. Our favorite way is to go to the source, to visit remote villages and hear the traditional songs and work with the elders who preserve these traditions." Cion explains. Unfortunately, it's expensive for eight people to travel to remote areas of the world, but they manage to find unique music in other ways. Kitka has traveled
abroad as a performing group twice, in 1986 and 1991, when they performed in Macedonia and Bulgaria to enormous acclaim. They became instant celebrities in those countries, where the spectacle of American women singing ancient folk songs of the countryside in the original language no less captured the imagination of die people. The group plans another tour in the summer of 2005 to Byelorussia, Ukraine and Hungary, where they'll undoubtedly return with more music for future shows.
The concert on Friday will feature works from their Wintersongs CD, a striking col lection of music that's not your usual evening of Christmas carols. The material ranges from ancient village chants to early and even pre-Christian and Sephardic songs to more modern works from contem porary composers. The Portland Oregonian, in reviewing a Kitka performance, put it best: "Only a Slavic folk tune, after all, can express bliss in a minor key, agony in jaunty dance rhythms. The languages in which they sing are largely unfamiliar to American ears. It is exacdy this unfamiliarity that is so riveting, as Kitka's sensitive precision lifts their work out of the merely musical into a universe beyond words, an experience that is primal and elemental."
It may be that experience of universal understanding on an innate, intimate level that bonds listeners to this special music. Some of the songs have somber, mournlul quality that Westerners don't commonly associate with celebration of the season. "Most of the songs come from religious traditions," says Cion. "The lyrics talk about the nativity and the glory of God. But pre-Christian folklore is very much present in them, even with the overlay of Christian themes. The songs are very earthy, they talk about the labor pains of the Virgin Mary, for example, and the moon, the stars and the trees." Other themes Cion points to in the music are nature imagery, the solstice and the return of the light. She points out that when these songs were written, winters were long, dark cold times when people had to struggle to survive. As such the songs reflect the need to become internal. But these are not the only themes, says Cion. "Some of the more lively and spirited songs serve as a kind of antidote; they try to create light, and talk about visiting guests, fertility and the prospect of wealth in the new year." During the program, performers will introduce the songs with anecdotes about how the songs were "found" and some history of the musical traditioas from whence they came.
Another explanation of the compelling power of the music lies in Kitka's performance technique, which they call "open voice." It's also known in Europe as "white voice," although the origin of that term is mystery. Cion describes open voice as "an open way of singing, coming directly from the gut. It projects quite strongly and is rich with overtone. There's not a lot of vibrato; vibrato in fact is used mostly as an 'ornament.'" The origins of open voice come from agricultural societies, where people sang lustily in open fields to make light of heavy work. It's very different from Western, bel canto style singing; as Cion says, "It comes straight from the gut. It feels really good, it's athletic. The vibration takes over the body and creates a wall of sound." CW
Kitka performs Wintersongs 8pm, Friday, Dec.
17, at Popejoy Halt, inside UNM's Center for
the Arts, in Albuquerque. Tickets are $19, $26
and $29, available via 925-5858 or by visiting
unmtickets.com, or via Tickets.com, 851-5050
or 800-905-3315.
12/16/04
|
| Click Here to go back. |
|
 |
|
|
|
