Kitka's popular wintersong concert forms the basis of this album of ancient seasonal songs from Eastern Europe. The ensemble's layered, richly harmonic sounds lends itself perfectly to the Carol of the Bells (""Shchedrik," track 17) and there are several a cappella tracks like "Shen Khar Venakhi," "Otche Nash" and "Dontojno Jest" that are so profoundly beautiful and peaceful that you'll want to play them over and over again. This is one of those albums where we'd definitely recommend purchasing the highest quality audio files (WAVs) over MP3s so that you can really hear all the incredible layering in the arrangments and performances. They take longer to download, but in this case?it's completely worth it.
Kitka has been featured on A Prairie Home Companion, Performance Today, Crossroads, John Schaeffer's New Sounds, Hearts of Space, Harmonia, and the Putumayo World Music Hour. Accompanying Kitka on this album are guest artists Rumen Shopov on tambura and bouzouki, Peter Maund on percussion, and Dan Cantrell on accordion. The Kitka singers also accompany themselves on bells, percussion, violin, flute, and tamburas.
m3u audio streams (if the flash player above doesn't work for you): [hifilofi] Play all tracks as an m3u audio stream (or xspf, ogg, mp3 file)
[hifilofi] 01-Tec Peleite Zernju Zogtu (Latvia) (3:06)
[hifilofi] 02-Byla Cesta (Moravia) (3:17)
[hifilofi] 03-Domnulet Si Domn Din Cer (Romania) (3:32)
[hifilofi] 04-Zamuchi Se Bozha Majka (Bulgaria) (2:37)
[hifilofi] 05-Alilo (Georgia) (2:44)
[hifilofi] 06-Otche Nash (Russia Bulgaria) (2:26)
[hifilofi] 07-Sculati Gazde Nu Dormiti (Romania) (1:23)
[hifilofi] 08-Betlehem Betlehem (Hungary) (2:46)
[hifilofi] 09-Dostojno Jest (Bulgaria) (4:21)
[hifilofi] 10-Oj Jak Priletaly Taj Dva Sokolonky (Ukraine) (1:59)
[hifilofi] 11-Oj U Horodi (Ukraine) (4:40)
[hifilofi] 12-Bozha Zvezda (Bulgarian Macedonia) (2:10)
[hifilofi] 13-Ayios Vasilis (Greece) (4:15)
[hifilofi] 14-Tsarsko Momche Kon Sedlae (Bulgaria) (2:21)
[hifilofi] 15-Ma Navu (Israel) (2:37)
[hifilofi] 16-Shen Khar Venakhi (Georgia) (4:11)
[hifilofi] 17-Shchedrik (Ukraine) (1:22)
[hifilofi] 18-A v Jerusalime (South Russia Ukraine) (2:24)