concert review: Kitka

[calimac]

I'd heard Kitka giving short sets at the Garden of Memory events in Oakland, where they sang mostly Eastern European folk music but once some Meredith Monk, making bracing sounds that I likened more than once to geese honking.

Then I got the notification they were doing a winter seasonal concert in Menlo Park. Apparently they do this every year that there isn't a pandemic on, but I hadn't been aware of it before. This would be my first chance to hear them do a full-length concert. Furthermore, this one had a touch of timeliness to it in that it would be mostly Ukrainian music. Hmm, I thought, I could review it for the Daily Journal. And so I did.

I expect that what I wrote about their repertoire and performing style would apply equally well to any folk concert they gave, so this may be the only time. B., who is a classically trained singer but also likes western folk music, did not care for this at all, in the same way that she doesn't like spicy food. So I was sure to warn in the review that the sound takes some getting used to, though I left out the goose comparison this time. Nevertheless my editor commented that it seemed really interesting, which is not something he often says about my reviews.

Comments

[ranunculus]

I have Loved Kitka and that sound for decades. Also have been a fan of Ukranian music since I first heard it in a tiny concert along about 1978.

[wild_patience]

Besides the goose honking, there was shouting and singing like insipid little girls rather than grown women. Not for me. On a few songs they did use vocal production like a good western choir, but those were few and far between. Not a fan.

[athenais]

I love Kitka, I first heard them in a winter concert they gave in Brisbane (of all places) and have gone to see them when I could. I am a real fan of the Eastern European chest-based singing (as opposed to the French style head voice) and even took some lessons from two Kitka members several years back in Oakland. I could barely get through the classes, it was so different and took so much strength! I think I first got interested in that choral style in the 90s when I heard a CD called Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares.

[calimac]

How are you on Central Asian throat singing?

[athenais]

Not fond of the sound at all, and I certainly don't think I could learn to do it!