According to legend, there is one week every year where the Rusalka can leave their watery homes to wander the earth in hopes of finding release from their watery prisons and to spread moisture among the crops to assist the spring growth.
The Rusalka Cycle: Songs Between The Worlds is the latest CD of song and music from the extraordinary women's choir Kitka from San Francisco. In the years since their formation, Kitka has made a name for itself for their poignant and impassioned performances of Eastern European vocal music and performance. Starting as an amateur group, they have established themselves as one of the most innovative small choral ensembles around. Through their own Diaphonica label they have produced five previous CDs while maintaining an active performance schedule, and running specialty workshops on the technique involved in Eastern European vocalization.
The Rusalka Cycle is actually a recording of a performance piece that the group did in collaboration with stage director Ellen Sebastian Chang and composer, vocalist, and director Mariana Sadovska. Mariana composed the score as a collage of folk melodies of Eastern Europe and texts combined with original music. Looking through the scene breakdown for the performance as it's written out in the CD's accompanying pamphlet you can see just how wide a net was cast for sources; from Russia in the East to Corsica in the West.
Not content with just studying, reading, and rehearsing the choir packed up, traveled to a small Ukrainian farming community during a Rusalka week, and watched the grandmothers of the community sing their versions of the songs. With that invaluable experience behind them, they were able to start putting together the pieces of the project.
With very few lyrics being sung in English, there are one or two places where English can be heard, and one definite English language song taken from a traditional American folk song. However, by the time it reached the point in the performance where English was being sung it took me a few moments to realize I could understand the lyric. Words had become unimportant by then because of the emotional power of the vocalizations.
Article comments