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Book launch: Carols of Birds, Bells, and Sacred Hymns from Ukraine: An Anthology and Cultural Companion by Marika C. Kuzma.

Presenter(s): Dr. Marika Kuzma

November 2, 2024 @ 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Ukraine’s abundant heritage of singing includes thousands of carols for the Christmas and New Year’s season. This book introduces an ancient culture that is nevertheless new to world audiences. The carols within it become a prism through which all of Ukraine’s history, culture, and resilient spirit are brought to light. As an anthology, the book includes the internationally celebrated Carol of the Bells—in its original version as a winter song of gratitude and resilience, and it spans sacred and secular pieces from early monophonic chant to elaborate, new choral fantasies. Transliterations and translations make the carols accessible to a broad audience. As a cultural companion, the book shares the stories behind each carol: historical context, biographies of composers, explanations of winter rituals. Written during Russia’s war on Ukraine, the book is also journalistic. These carols often carry gripping narratives of a unique choral activism that has helped Ukraine, its language, and its people to survive.

Marika Kuzma’s work is invaluable for any conductor, singer or musicologist interested in the rich heritage of Ukrainian choral music. The recent horrendous invasion of Ukraine has given heightened urgency to the study and promulgation of Ukrainian culture. Marika’s comprehensive anthology and passionate scholarship shines a bright light on the vital choral tradition in Ukraine and makes it accessible to choirs, conductors and music lovers around the world.—Grant Gershon, Grammy Award Winning Artistic Director—Los Angeles Master Chorale

Dr. Marika Kuzma grew up in Hartford, CT, in a close-knit Ukrainian diaspora community. Ukrainian songs and hymns were among the first music she sang with her family at home and in their Ukrainian Catholic church choir. After attaining a bachelor’s degree in voice as a Morehead Scholar at UNC Chapel Hill, a master’s degree from Stanford University, and her doctorate at Indiana University in choral conducting, she was hired at the University of California, Berkeley. As a professor of music there, she directed its large University Chorus and Chamber Chorus, taught conducting and music history, and led its solo vocal program for some twenty-five years. She also guest directed choirs at Dartmouth College, Oklahoma City University, and the University of Virginia. In 2007–2009, she served as chef de choeur (chorusmaster) to maestro Kent Nagano and the Montreal Symphony and led the St. Lawrence Choir of Montreal.

Moderator: 
Dr. Maria Sonevytsky is an associate professor of Anthropology and Music at Bard College, an award-winning author, and founder of Chornobyl Songs Project: Living Culture from a Lost World, a public ethnomusicology program. Her areas of interest include folklore revivals after state socialism, critical organology, the science of musical instruments, and Soviet children’s music. She is the author of Wild Music: Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine (2019), several book chapters and journal articles in Music & Politics, Public Culture, The World of Music, Journal of Popular Music Studies, and winner of the Lewis Lockwood Award from the American Musicological Society. Dr. Sonevytsky taught at Bard College and the University of California, Berkeley. She is also an accordionist, vocalist, and pianist.

In conversation with:
Archbishop Borys Gudziak
is the Metropolitan-Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, founder of the Institute of Church History, and president of the Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv. He served as the Eparch of the Paris Eparchy of St. Volodymyr the Great or France, Switzerland, and Benelux (Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church), head of the Department of External Church Relations, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. He is the author of academic articles and books on church history, spirituality, theology, among them a doctoral dissertation, Crisis and Reform: The Kyivan Metropolitanate, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the Union of Brest (1998). Borys Gudziak received Jan Nowak-Jezioranski Award (Wroclaw, Poland).

Admission to this event is free, registration is required. Suggested donation is $10. Building capacity is limited, please register below to secure your spot.

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Details

Date:
November 2, 2024
Time:
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm