The Kitka Institute (Oakland, CA) and Zado Eastern European Vocal Ensemble (Sacramento, CA) are pleased to co-present The Artistry of Balkan Singing, a series of three online vocal workshops, followed by an opportunity to participate in virtual Balkan choir projects.
The workshops will be led by Michele Simon (renowned performer, vocal coach, and associate vocalist with Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble) and Tzvetanka Varimezova (Bulgarian folkloric soprano, choral director, and UCLA Professor of Ethnomusicology).
In this workshop series, Michele and Tzvetanka will explore Balkan vocal production and technique and present two beautifully harmonized pieces rooted in Croatian and Bulgarian folk song traditions: "Zaspo Janko pod jablanom" (Janko slept under the poplar tree) and "Dragana i slaveja" (Dragana and the nightingale).
Admission to these workshops is by freewill donation with no one turned away for lack of funds.
The workshops, on Zoom, will take place on the three Saturdays in January 2021:
Saturday, January 9 from 12pm - 2pm (Pacific Time)
Saturday, January 16 from 12pm - 2pm (Pacific Time)
Saturday, January 30 from 12pm - 2pm (Pacific Time)
Instructions for optional Virtual Choir projects participation will be shared with all workshop registrants, with a deadline for Virtual Choir recording submissions of February 28, 2021.
ABOUT OUR TEACHERS
Michele Simon has been involved with music all of her life, and with Balkan folk music for most of it, as a dancer, singer, drummer and teacher. She was raised surrounded by music of all kinds, including classical (especially Bach), standards (especially Margaret Whiting, Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald), and American folk music. She sang before she talked, played cello and guitar, and most formatively, enjoyed trading harmonies with her mother’s rich alto.
She has been inspired by countless musicians, both in the U.S. and abroad, and has been lucky to study with, to name just a few, the late Nadezhda Hvoineva, from the Bulgarian Rhodope region; the late Esma Redžepova, Queen of Romany music; Serbian folk specialist Svetlana Spajić; Mary Sherhart of Seattle; Jane Sharp of Berkeley; and Bulgarian master singer Tatiana Sarbinska, with whom she also trained as a teacher. Over the last thirty years she has sung with Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble; and has been steeped in complex odd-metered Balkan dance rhythms through singing and playing percussion in the folk dance bands Anoush, Brass Menažeri, Helladelics and Zabava!. She has appeared on recordings and stages across America and in Bulgaria, as well as on Bulgarian and Serbian TV.
Michele teaches private students, workshops, and camps, including the popular Balkan Vocal Technique class that has been a staple at Mendocino Balkan Camp for almost 20 years. As a singing teacher, Michele’s specialty is integrating Balkan vocal styles with American voices. With humor, warmth and patience, she focuses on placement and sound fundamentals, using innovative exercises and imagery, as well as her model skull, Bartholomew.
TZVETANKA VARIMEZOVA
Tzvetanka Varimezova was born in Pazardzhik in Bulgarian Thrace, and started singing and playing accordion at age 9. She went on to master tambura and piano, and studied folk music at Kotel High School for Folk Music and received a B.A. degree in choral conducting and folk instrument pedagogy from the Academy of Music and Dance in Plovdiv.
During the 1980s she directed the choir of a regional professional ensemble of folk song and dance in the town of Pazardzhik. During the 1990s she was a soloist and assistant choral director of a number of professional women’s choirs in Sofia, including the Bulgarian National Ensemble of Folk Song and Dance, founded by Filip Koutev.
She performed with Ensemble Trakiya for five years and conducted the Pazardzhik Ensemble choir for seven. In 1993 she began working with two Bulgarian-style choirs in Denmark, and also sang with Cosmic Voices from Bulgaria and Les Grands Voix Bulgares.
In addition, she has been working with choirs from around the world, including Denmark, France, Greece, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Spain, and numerous choirs in the United States. She 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, as well as from all the folk regions of Bulgaria.
She performs regularly with her husband Ivan Varimezov. Since 2001 they have been in residency at UCLA, where Tzvetanka directs the women’s Bulgarian choir there.
In 2017 Tzvetanka was awarded “Voice of the Year 2017” at the Annual Folk Music Awards in Bulgaria. At the same awards ceremony in 2018 she received the “Award for Lifetime Contribution to Bulgarian Folk Music.” In 2020, she received the Bulgarian Presidential Badge of Honor for her significant contribution to the preservation and promotion of Bulgarian folk art and traditions around the world.
This project is supported, in part, by the California Arts Council's Artists In Communities Program.