Ukrainian liturgical classics highlight Berkeley Chamber Chorus release (12/08/96)

Ukrainian liturgical classics highlight Berkeley Chamber Chorus release

by Ksenia Kyzyk

BERKELEY, Calif. - The Chamber Chorus of the University of California at Berkeley, under the direction of Marika Kuzma, has released a new compact disc of liturgical classics titled "Icons of Slavic Music" featuring the works of Ukrainian choirmasters Epifany Slavinetsky, Dmitri Tuptalo and Dmytro Bortniansky. The CD also includes a setting of Rachmaninoff's Vespers and several first-time recordings of anonymous compositions that were part of the 16th and 17th century repertoire of Kyivan monasteries and theological seminaries.

The "Icons" release was recorded live during a series of concerts on the Berkeley ensemble's first East Coast tour last year. The tour, which received financial support from The Washington Group Cultural Fund, included concerts in St. John's Episcopal Church in Georgetown, St. Michael's Episcopal Church in New York City, Dwight Chapel on the campus of Yale University, the Loomis-Chaffee School in Windsor, Conn., and the First Congregational Church in Cambridge, Mass.

The chorus's first concert received an excellent review in the Washington Post. Critic Joan Reinthaler wrote that "Kuzma and her singers were particularly effective in the communion hymn 'Receive the Body of Christ' (Tilo Khrystovo Pryimite) in which splendid feelings of moving through phrases and of accent and flexibility gave the music life. ... The singing, abetted by sympathetic acoustics, was intelligent, responsive and well balanced."

The Chamber Chorus has also won the praise of many music critics in the San Francisco Bay area. Allen Ulrich of the San Francisco Examiner wrote a glowing review of a recent performance of Handel's Oratorio "Saul" in which he argued that "the glory really belonged to the orchestra ... and to Marika Kuzma's rejuvenated University of California Chamber Chorus."

Stephanie von Buchau of Opera News cited the "powerful concentration of Marika Kuzma's University Chamber Chorus which provided an exciting backdrop" to the soloists. Earlier this year, the chorus was hailed by Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle and Belinda Reynolds for its rendition of a new work by Frederic Rzewski.

Writing in the February edition of the journal 20th Century Music, Ms. Reynolds called Rzewski's "The Lost Melody" a "memorable work expertly conducted by Marika Kuzma. Kuzma is best known in the Bay Area for her leadership of the UC Chamber and University Choruses. Her incisive leadership of this evening's ensemble proved that she is also a formidable interpreter of new instrumental music."

Mr. Kosman also credited Dr. Kuzma with rejuvenating the Chamber Chorus and providing "a magnificent counterpoint, both weighty and electric," to a "glorious" performance of "Saul": ... "In the two large sections that frame the work - the first a celebration of David's victory over Goliath, the second an extended elegy on the deaths of Saul and his son Jonathan - the choral singing was sumptuous and defined."

Dr. Kuzma is a professor of music who recently received tenure at UCLA Berkeley after completing an award-winning dissertation on the choral concertos of Bortniansky. The thesis was published in the spring 1996 edition of the Journal of Musicology under the heading "Bortniansky a la Bortniansky: An Examination of the Sources of Dmitry Bortniansky's Choral Concertos." Dr. Kuzma explored the ongoing dispute as to the proper interpretation of Bortniansky's works.

Once hailed as the "Palestrina of Orthodox choral music," Bortniansky was one of the triumvirate of composers (together with Vedel and Berezovsky) who inaugurated the "Golden Age" of Ukrainian choral music in the late 18th century. Bortniansky's important contribution to the emergence of classical music in Eastern Europe was maligned by Soviet scholars and 19th century Russian composers such as Tchaikovsky, who indicted him for introducing "Western influences" into native Slavic choral traditions. More recently, with the advent of the Millennium of Ukrainian Christianity and the restoration of religious freedom in Ukraine, there has been a renewed scholarly interest in Bortniansky's music.

Dr. Kuzma has sought to restore the original integrity of the concertos as they were performed prior to the revisions made by Tchaikovsky. Her thesis on Bortniansky was awarded the American Choral Directors Association "Julius Herford Prize" last year at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

The "Icons" CD includes two of Bortniansky's better-known works: "Sei Den" ("This is the Day the Lord Has made") and "Reche Hospod" ("The Lord Said to My Lord").

Dr. Kuzma is a native of Hartford, Conn., where she studied violin and voice at the Hartt School of Music. The daughter of Orest and Oksana Kuzma, she grew up singing in the choir of St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church, where she was first introduced to the works of Bortniansky, Vedel and Arkhanhelsky.

She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a full scholarship from the Moorehead Foundation and continued her musical schooling in voice and choral conducting at the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Vienna Hochschule, Stanford University and Indiana University.

Her choral/symphonic performances at the University of California have included Bach's "St. Matthew's Passion," Brahms' "Ein Deutsches Requiem," and Stravinsky's "Les Noces." Dr. Kuzma is currently on sabbatical. This spring, she will be conducting Verdi's "Requiem" at Dartmouth College.

The "Icons of Slavic Music" CD may be purchased through Yevshan at Box 325, Beaconsfield, Quebec, H9W 5T8; 800-265-9858.

Ksenia Kyzyk is the conductor of the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church Choir in Passaic, N.J., and a member of the IKA Trio whose CD also appears on the Yevshan label.