Kitka Performs Love Songs with Mahsa Vahdat This February

The Bay Area's trailblazing and internationally acclaimed women's vocal ensemble, Kitka, is pleased to announce two a cappella concerts with renowned Iranian singer Mahsa Vahdat. In a program titled, Songs to the Beloved, Kitka and Vahdat explore the many faces of love, performing songs old and new from Iran, Armenia, Georgia, the Balkans and beyond.

The concerts take place 8 p.m., Friday, February 17 at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, and at 8 p.m., Saturday, February 18 at SF Live Arts at St. Cyprian's Church in San Francisco.Saturday's concert is co-presented by SF Live Arts' Women in Music Series. Tickets from $20 - $35 are available for purchase on Brown Paper Tickets via Kitka.org/events.

Vahdat, trained in classical Persian singing and regional folk music by master musicians in Iran, performs a repertoire inspired by traditional music and poetry from Iran infused with her own artistic sensibility. Vahdat is an award-winning ambassador for Freemuse, the world's foremost organization advocating for freedom of expression for musicians and composers. She has attracted considerable global attention and acclaim for her work on the record Lullabies from the Axis of Evil and her new solo album The Sun Will Rise.

"These concerts with Kitka, Songs to the Beloved, are very important to me," said Vahdat. "They are important because they perform a dialogue across cultures. It's a connection of human beings based on the idea of dignity and respect. This music breaks the walls between us."

"At a time when many places in the world (including the United States and Iran) are moving towards insularity, intolerance and retro-patriarchy, we are motivated to present a program inspired by the many faces of love and longing from a distinctly female and xenophilic perspective," added Shira Cion, executive artistic director of Kitka. "We cannot forget that Mahsa comes to us from a country where it remains illegal for women solo artists to perform in public except for authorized all-female audiences."

Vahdat will perform several songs from her latest album, The Sun Will Rise, taking lyrics from the canon of Persian literature - from medieval poets Rumi and Hafez to twentieth-century female poet Forough Farrokhzad - and setting them to original melodies inspired by classical and folk traditions. Kitka, in turn, will share a number of love songs from Eastern Europe. Finally, Kitka and Vahdat will perform together, showcasing several songs born from Vahdat's month-long residency with the ensemble.

RESILIENT CREATIVITY: PERSIAN TRADITIONAL SINGING WITH MAHSA VAHDAT
Kitka will also host two public workshops, entitled "Resilient Creativity: Persian Traditional Singing with Mahsa Vahdat." The workshops will take place on Saturday and Sunday, February 25 - 26 from 2 - 5:30 p.m. at the Silk Road House in Berkeley. Workshop registration is $53 for a single workshop, $100 for the two-workshop series. Advance registration is available online at Brown Paper Tickets via Kitka.org/events.

Kitka's commitment to presenting traditional song as a living and evolving expressive art form has led to adventurous collaborations with some of the world's most exciting indigenous musicians and contemporary composers ranging from Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares to Meredith Monk. Kitka began as a grassroots group of amateur singers from diverse ethnic and musical backgrounds who shared a passion for the stunning dissonances, asymmetric rhythms, intricate ornamentation, and resonant strength of traditional Eastern European women's vocal music. Now an internationally acclaimed professional ensemble with a 38-year history, Kitka's wide-ranging performance, teaching, and recording activities have exposed millions to the haunting beauty of their unique repertoire.

Kitka's concerts with Mahsa Vahdat are supported, in part, by the City of Oakland Cultural Funding Program, the San Francisco Arts Commission, and San Francisco Grants for the Arts.