Berkeley Chamber Chorus travels to Ukraine as part of Central/Eastern European tour (08/01/99)

Berkeley Chamber Chorus travels to Ukraine as part of Central/Eastern European tour

by Ksenia Salewycz

BERKELEY, Calif. - The Chamber Chorus of the University of California-Berkeley under the direction of Prof. Marika Kuzma traveled in June to Central and Eastern Europe for a 10-day concert tour, visiting Vienna, Lviv, Kyiv and Prague.

Plans for the tour began last August, when the chorus received an invitation from St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna to sing for a live radio broadcast there. Accepting the invitation, the chorus decided to extend its tour to include the Czech Republic and Ukraine.

In Vienna, the chorus performed during a holiday service "Pfingstmontag" (Pentecost Monday) before a crowded cathedral audience. They sang the Vaughan Williams Mass in G Minor and also several Slavic works including "Blazhen Muzh" - a setting of verses from the first psalm sung in Kyivan chant, Bortniansky's Cherubic Hymn No. 8, and "Slava Otsiu" by the contemporary Ukrainian composer, Lesia Dychko, a resident of Kyiv.

Many of these works were performed for the first time in Vienna. Director Kuzma noted, "I thought it was particularly fitting to sing in languages unusual for the Viennese on this feast day of Pentecost when the human spirit speaks in many languages." After the chorus sang Ms. Dychko's rousing finale, the cathedral audience burst into applause, and the cathedral organist concluded the service with an improvisation based on Ms. Dychko's composition.

Following their performance in Vienna, the chorus traveled eastward through Slovakia and Poland to western Ukraine. In Lviv, they performed an evening concert at the historic Organ Recital Hall (Zal Kamernoi ta Orhannoyi Muzyky). They also gave an afternoon concert at the Lviv Regional Clinical Children's Hospital (LRCCH) to an auditorium crowded with children, their parents and hospital staff.

The Lviv RCCH is a partner hospital of the New Jersey-based Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund, which helped to arrange the performance. The chorus was welcomed by Dr. Roman Kovalsky, a pediatric cardiac surgeon who trained in the United States under the CCRF's auspices. During the charity concert, the chorus sang in both Ukrainian and English, and the children seemed to particularly enjoy one of the American spirituals "Ain'a that Good News." As an encore the chorus improvised a choral version of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" with the children joining in the refrains ("oink-oink, moo-moo, quack-quack"). Some of the children asked the singers for autographs at the conclusion of the program.

Traveling further east, the chorus arrived in Kyiv just in time for a city-wide celebration known as Den Kyiva (Kyiv Day). As part of the festival, the chorus participated in an informal outdoor concert on the Maydan Nezalezhnosty (Independence Plaza), at an outdoor amphitheater, where they sang American spirituals and the 1950s pop song "Teenager in Love," in an arrangement by five men from the chorus. "I had a hard time explaining doo-wop and translating those lyrics into Ukrainian," Dr. Kuzma recalls, "but I thought they'd enjoy a bit of American pop. They seemed to catch on."

In a more serious performance, the chorus presented a full evening concert at the library of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. The program, which the chorus had performed in Berkeley and Los Altos prior to its departure from the United States spanned various centuries and cultures of sacred music and was titled "Dzherela Dukhovnoyi Muzyky" ("Wellsprings of Sacred Music).

Among the selections native to Ukraine, the chorus sang 12th century chant from Kyiv in Church Slavonic, an 18th-century choral concerto by Bortniansky and a motet by Berezovsky as well as 20th century selections by Koshetz and Dychko. Among their selections from the Western tradition, they sang a chant by the 12th century Abbess Hildegarde of Bingen in Latin, portions of a 17th-century mass by Moteverdi, portions of the Vaughan Williams Mass, and some American spirituals.

Director Kuzma explained her programming: "Some of this music has never been performed in Berkeley. Some of this music has never been performed in Kyiv. Perhaps I am seeking to show our audiences both in America and abroad that the sacred is present in each of these locations and in each of these traditions. Perhaps subconsciously I am seeking to find cohesion among the various sacred places and musics that have occupied and enriched my own life."

At the academy, the chorus sang to a full house, an audience that included prominent Ukrainian musicologists, choral directors and composers. Among the composers present was Ms. Dychko whose music the chorus performed that evening and who apparently was moved to tears by the performance. After the concert and several encores, the composer spoke with the chorus, thanking and praising them for their work.

The next day, the chorus offered a workshop on American spirituals at the Kyiv Conservatory. Prof. Kuzma gave a lecture on the history and musical style of the spiritual. The chorus then sang several spirituals together with the conservatory students, conducted both by Prof. Kuzma and the resident student conductor.

During the question and answer period that followed, the Kyiv students and Berkeley students exchanged questions about each other's musical training and aspirations. The students and faculty who had attended the concert the night before asked the chorus how they could sing in so many different languages and styles so convincingly. Prof. Kuzma replied: "As you can see from our faces, Berkeley is a place with people of many nationalities. America in general has many ethnicities, and California is right on the Pacific Rim. Our students have grown up with many cultures in their ears. In our daily lives we have all learned to listen carefully and adapt, and we try to apply this to our music-making."

The chorus's final stop was the Czech Republic. In Prague, the chorus took part in a short concert at St. Havel Church, a Baroque structure in the center of the city. The chorus was also invited to take part in an international choral festival in Nymburk, a town outside of Prague. There the chorus was greeted by the town council and mayor, who gave the members a private tour before their evening concert. One of the choir's altos, Petra Safarova, who was born in Prague, translated the Ukrainian and English texts into Czech.

In each location and at each concert the chorus was greeted with warm applause and great interest. For its part, the chorus visited each location with renewed appreciation for the music they sang. "It was so amazing to perform this music in Church Slavonic and Ukrainian for native speakers, and to feel their immediate response," commented one young alto from San Francisco, "and especially to be greeted by Dychko."

In 1995, the Chamber Chorus released a recording of Ukrainian and Slavic sacred works titled "Icons of Sacred Music." Dr. Kuzma has received acclaim for many of her choral productions in the Bay Area. Earlier this year, she directed the University Chorus and Orchestra in a performance of the Verdi Requiem at UCLA-Berkeley.

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