Vocal
Workshops
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Events ... Vocal Workshops ... Vocal
Auditions Please sign up on our mailing list to hear about upcoming workshops. VOCAL WORKSHOPS WITH KITKA SINGERSLearn specialized techniques to open your voice, and experience the joy of creating the lush harmonies, striking dissonances, angular rhythms, intricate ornaments, and resonant sounds that make Kitka's repertoire so unique. These workshops will be led by a variety of Kitka vocalists who offer fascinating, diverse, and fun perspectives on Balkan, Slavic, and Caucasian folk singing. Level I: (Open to all!) led by Briget Boyle Briget Boyle has just celebrated her 4 year anniversery of being a vocalist in Kitka. She appears as a soloist on two of Kitka CDs, Sanctuary: A Cathedral Concert and The Rusalka Cycle: Songs Between the Worlds as well as on Kitka's live concert DVD, Kitka and Davka In Concert: Old and New World Jewish Music. She also performs as a vocalist and percussionist in the Brass Menazeri Balkan brass band (www.brassmenazeri.com) and Dan Cantrell's Megaband. Prior to moving to the Bay Area in 2004 she attended the College of Santa Fe as a Music Performance and Composition major receiving the honor of Composer of the Year in 2001. She was the Assistant Director of the Jewish Music Festival in Berkeley in 2006 and 2007 and is now Kitka's Ensemble Manager. Level II: (For those with a bit more singing experience) led by Janet Kutulas and Shira Cion Shira Cion has been active both as a professional performer and arts administrator for over 25 years. She holds degrees in Classical Music Performance (oboe/English horn), Ethnomusicology, and Slavic Folklore from the Hartt School of Music, Wesleyan University, and Russia's Moscow Conservatory. Her life-long interest in new music and the expressive possibilities of the voice led to composition and performance work with Alvin Lucier, Meredith Monk, Pauline Oliveros, Joan Jonas, the Composers Cafeteria and ultimately to her discovery of traditional Balkan and Slavic women's singing, which has been her obsession since 1986. Of Russian, Belarussian and Ukrainian/Jewish descent, she joined Kitka in 1988, became the ensemble's Associate Director in 1991, and Executive Director in 1996. Janet Kutulas joined KITKA in 1988, when she broke both her hands in a cycling accident and was temporarily unable to play her flute. A graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music she was awarded a Hertz Fellowship from the University of California in Berkeley as a living/traveling stipend to be used for the purpose of studying the flute abroad. She relocated abroad to the Chicago area where she studied and performed as a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago (a training program of the Chicago Symphony), the New Arts Ensemble and the Illinois Philharmonic. Back in the Bay Area, she performed with the Berkeley Symphony, the California Symphony, the Lamplighters Orchestra, and the Donald Pippins Light Opera Company as well as various local pick-up orchestras and chamber groups. As a founding member, she played for 15 years with EARPLAY, an ensemble that performs newly written works by living composers. She has also performed in the San Francisco Symphony's New and Unusual Music Series, and with Composers Inc., among other Bay Area chamber groups. Workshops take place at the offices of Class size is limited, and advance registration is highly encouraged.
BULGARIAN VOCAL WORKSHOPS led by TZVETANKA VARIMEZOVABulgarian folkloric soprano Tzvetanka Varimezova is KITKA’s principal mentor in Bulgarian singing. Her inspiring, warm, and down-to-earth teaching style makes the "mystery" of Bulgarian singing accessible to all. Since 1993 she has coached two Bulgarian-style choirs in Denmark Sedjanka and Usmifka. Since 2001, she has been a master artist in residence at University of California, Los Angeles ethnomusicology department, where she teaches Balkan singing technique and conducts the UCLA Bulgarian Women’s Choir Superdevojche. Concurrently, she has been working as a vocal coach to the American choirs KITKA (Oakland, CA), Nevenka (Los Angeles, CA), Zhena (San Pedro, CA), and Born to Drone (Redwood City, CA). She is also a faculty member of the East European Folklife Center’s West and East Coast Balkan Music and Dance Workshops, and Ross Daly’s Labyrinth Musical Seminars on Crete. Ms. Varimezova was born to a musical family in Pazardzhik in Bulgarian Thrace. She started singing and playing accordion at age 9, and went on to master tambura and piano at the Kotel High School for Folk Music and at the Plovdiv Conservatory. From 1979 to 1996, she performed as a soloist and assistant conductor with the Bulgarian National Folk Ensembles Trakija, Philip Koutev, and Pazardzhik. Since 1989 she has been a soloist and conductor with Cosmic Voices from Bulgaria, Les Grand Voix Bulgares, and Les Mystère des Voix Bulgaresan ensemble specializing in Bulgarian folk and Orthodox music. She has also performed as part of The Bulgarian Radio Choir and Trio Bojura. With these ensembles and others, she has toured throughout Europe, Russia, Japan, Latin America, and the USA. Ms. Varimezova has many solo recordings to her name and is well-known for her brilliant, high-pitched tone quality and her interpretations of the highly ornamented songs from her native Pazardzhik region.
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