ARTS CENTER CONCERT BRINGS FOLK MUSIC FROM EASTERN EUROPE

The 2007-2008 Evening Concert Series at the Randolph County Community Arts Center continues as Svitanya takes the Great Hall stage on Saturday, March 15th at 8 PM. Drawing a repertoire from the entire region of Eastern Europe, the nine women known as Svitanya will sing a collection of work songs, dance tunes, songs of courting, love and rebellion, which have been handed down through many generations in the Slavic, Baltic, Balkan, and Southern Caucasus areas.

“Svitanya,” which means “the light at sunrise” in Croatian and Ukrainian, is an all women group whose members range in age from their teens to the mothers of teens and include two mother and daughter pairs.  The Philadelphia based group includes two Russian language teachers, a banker/folk dancer, a biochemist, a community activist, as well as several students. All the group members are Americans by nationality, several members are from Eastern European ancestry, and several are fluent speakers of Croatian, Russian and Ukrainian.

In live performance, Svitanya’s entertaining stories and translations make their music accessible and relevant to English-speaking audiences.  Their eye-catching costumes include brightly colored hand-embroidered blouses from different Eastern European countries, some made by the singers’ own relatives.  Though most songs are sung a cappella, a few will be enhanced by accompaniment on traditional instruments. Mary Armstrong of the Philadelphia City Paper describes Svitanya as "pure, unaccompanied voices rising and resounding as one." Armstrong continues,  "Svitanya is helping to preserve songs and sounds that the era of battery-powered boomboxes and bootlegged pop tapes is threatening to erase in small remote villages of Ukraine." 

Svitanya member Mary Kalyna will present a pre-concert lecture titled “Voices of the Grandmothers” at 4:30 PM in the Great Hall of the Arts Center.  Kalyna will present video documentation gathered from her 2005 trip to the Ukraine of the women singing in Ukrainian villages.  These grandmothers, known in Ukraine as “babusi,” have preserved ancient, sometimes even pre-Christian songs, through several generations, showing that music can survive periods of intense repression of language and culture. Kalyna explains, “Because of the isolation of the past, these songs might exist in only one place.”

The 2007-2008 Evening Concert Series at the Randolph County Community Arts Center is locally sponsored by Family Dental Practice, Allegheny Insurance, WDNE Radio, The InterMountain Newspaper, and The Graceland Inn and Conference Center of Davis and Elkins College.  This project is partially supported by a grant from Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, developed and funded by the Vira I. Heinz Endowment; the William Penn Foundation; the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency; and The Pew Charitable Trusts; and administered by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation., and with financial assistance from the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts.

The RCCAC, a non-profit organization promoting and supporting the arts in Randolph County and surrounding areas, is located at the corner of Randolph Avenue and Park Street in Elkins. Tickets for the Svitanya concert are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors, and $5 for students, and can be purchased   at the RCCAC office or at the door while they last. For reservations and information, call the RCCAC office at 637-2355 or log onto www.randolpharts.org.  Additional information on the performers can be found at http://www.svitanje.org/.