 Kitka - Professional Vocal Ensemble
Kitka is a professional vocal ensemble dedicated to producing concerts, recordings, and educational programs that develop new audiences for music rooted in Eastern European women’s vocal traditions. Kitka also strives to expand the boundaries of this music as an expressive art form. Our mission is accomplished through an Oakland-based home series of concerts and vocal workshops; regional, national, and international touring programs; community service activities; in-school programs; broadcasts; recording and publication projects; master artist residencies; commissioning programs; and adventuresome collaborations.
Kitka was founded in 1979 as an offshoot of the Westwind International Folk Ensemble. Kitka began as a grassroots group of amateur singers from diverse backgrounds who met regularly to share their passion for the stunning dissonances, asymmetric rhythms, intricate ornamentation, lush harmonies, and resonant strength of Eastern European women’s vocal music. Under the direction of Bon Singer from 1981 to 1996, Kitka blossomed into a refined professional ensemble earning international renown for its artistry, versatility, and mastery of the demanding techniques of traditional and contemporary Balkan, Slavic, and Caucasian vocal styling. Under the co-direction of Shira Cion, Janet Kutulas, and Juliana Graffagna since 1997, Kitka has grown to earn recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts, Chorus America, and the American Choral Directors’ Association as one of this country’s premier vocal ensembles. In addition, many international musical authorities consider Kitka the foremost interpreter of Balkan and Slavic choral repertoire working in the United States. Kitka has deep ties to Eastern Europe and has traveled there to perform and collect repertoire many times. In 2002, Kitka joined Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares as “international guests of honor” for this world-renowned choir’s 50th Anniversary Gala at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 2005, Kitka journeyed to Ukraine for a series of performances, international artist-exchange meetings, radio and television broadcasts, and research expeditions in rural villages. Kitka’s work in Ukraine created such a stir that the ensemble has already been invited back in 2006 for a performance in Kiev’s most prestigious concert hall, the Palace “Ukrainia.” For 2007 Kitka is considering invitations to perform at international world music festivals in Canada, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Hungary. Kitka’s singers regularly conduct fieldwork in ethnic communities throughout America as well as abroad. Many of Kitka’s singers are also talented composers and arrangers who create original settings of songs they have gathered in the field. In addition to original works by ensemble members, Kitka has presented premieres of new music by more than twenty-five composers. In 2000, Kitka received major grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation to launch the New Folksongs Commissioning Project, which engages some of America’s most exciting composers to write new works for the group. New Folksongs commissions premiered to date include compositions by Pauline Oliveros, Chen Yi, David Lang, Linda Tillery, Janet Kutulas, Daniel Hoffman, Thilo Reinhardt and Roy Whelden. In 2002, Kitka began work on it’s most ambitious commissioning project to date: The Rusalka Cycle: Songs Between the Worlds, a new vocal-theater project directed by Ellen Sebastian Chang, with original music by Ukrainian composer Mariana Sadovska. Weaving old Slavic mythology together with contemporary themes, The Rusalka Cycle’s premiere performances took place to extraordinary public acclaim at Oakland’s Malonga Center in November 2005. A recording release, San Francisco performance run, and national and international touring of The Rusalka Cycle are now being planned for 2006 and 2007. Kitka’s innovative sense of programming has led to dozens of other fruitful collaborations, ranging from a reconstruction of the medieval Carmina Burana pageant for CalPerformances, (Thomas Binkley, director), to work with Hollywood composers on major motion picture soundtracks including Braveheart, Jacob’s Ladder, and Queen of the Damned. Other collaborations of note include creating the role of the Greek Chorus/Trojan Slave Women in the American Conservatory Theater’s three critically-acclaimed performance runs of Hecuba (Carey Perloff, Director) for which Kitka received a Drama Critic’s Circle Award nomination; the creation of Women in Black, a multi-disciplinary work inspired by the international Women in Black Against War Movement (Thais Mazur, choreographer; Katrina Wreede composer) for which Kitka received an Izzie award nomination for best musical contribution to a dance program; and Songs from Mama’s Table, a celebration of the commonalties and contrasts between Balkan, Slavic and African American women’s singing traditions with Grammy nominees Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir. Kitka has released eight critically acclaimed recordings, six on its own Diaphonica label, most recently Wintersongs (2004). In September 2005, Kitka published its first songbook, a companion to the Wintersongs CD. This publication is making a significant impact on the national choral field.
A frequent guest on national radio shows, Kitka has recently been featured on NPR programs such as A Prairie Home Companion, All Things Considered, On Point, West Coast Live and Performance Today. In the 2004-05 season, live Kitka concerts were also broadcast widely on Vermont Public Radio, the CBC (Radio Canada), and Ukrainian national radio and television.
A frequently occurring symbolic word in Balkan women’s folksong lyrics, Kitka means “bouquet” in Bulgarian and Macedonian. Contact information:
KITKA
1201 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Oakland, CA 94612
phone: 510.444.0323
fax: 510.444.1013
e-mail:
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web: www.kitka.org
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