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Dear Kitka Community,
It's hard to believe that the long days of summer have slipped away. While we've been a bit quiet on the communications front these past couple months, we've been wildly busy working behind the scenes on some very exciting new projects that we'll be revealing
to you in the coming weeks. Be sure to watch your inboxes for big Kitka news!
Next month, we are thrilled to open our 2025-2026 season with two very special Bay Area events, a concert and community vocal workshop, featuring the astonishing and inspirational ensemble
Kurbasy,
from L'viv, Ukraine. Kitka is partnering with Center
Stage, a wonderful and vitally important cultural diplomacy organization, to bring Kurbasy to the Bay Area. If you are not in
Northern California, check out Kurbasy's full US tour itinerary at the bottom of this message for concert dates near you.
Kurbasy's creative home, The
Les Kurbas Theater, was the first place to welcome Kitka to Ukraine when we toured there in 2025. When Russia's full-scale invasion
of Ukraine shocked the world in early 2022, this beautiful little vintage jewelbox of a creative space became a makeshift shelter for refugees fleeing to Poland, and Kitka mounted several fundraisers to offer our artist friends-turned-humanitarian-aid-workers
some relief.
The fact that we are now able to share the stage with these wonderful human beings to stand and sing in solidarity with Ukraine means the world to us.
Read on for more details...
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Kitka, in cooperation with Center Stage and The Freight
presents
SONGS OF THE UKRAINIAN FOREST
featuring
KURBASY
From L'viv, Ukraine
One performance only!
Tuesday, October 28 / 8pm (doors at 7pm)
The Freight
2020 Addison Street, Berkeley, CA
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A captivating force in Ukraine’s contemporary arts scene, Kurbasy
transforms centuries-old folk songs, lullabies, and legends into mesmerizing multimedia experiences. With haunting vocal harmonies, evocative instrumentation, and dreamlike visual imagery, Kurbasy's performances bridge the ancient and the urgent, the mythical
and the modern. In their latest work, Songs of the Ukrainian Forest, Kurbasy conjures time-bending soundscapes that channel deep-rooted cultural memory into affirmations of resilience, love, and resistance in the face of violence and war.
Kitka will open the evening with a spellbinding set of Ukrainian polyphonic
songs. Kurbasy will then take the stage with a dramatic song cycle drawing from Eastern, Central, and Western Ukrainian folk traditions, including rare Lemsky dialect songs from the Polish borderlands.
“We want to affirm our loud and clear freedom, our love for our country
and our people,”
says Kurbasy vocalist Maria Oneschak.
“We want to show our independence and strength,”
adds her singing partner Natalia Rybka-Parhomenko.
The evening will culminate in a moving joint performance by Kitka
and Kurbasy—Ukrainian and American voices united in solidarity, singing out for democracy, peace, and justice.
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Vocal Workshop with Kurbasy
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Wednesday, October 29 / 7:30-9:30 PM
Lake Merritt United Methodist Church
1330 Lakeshore Avenue, Oakland, CA
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Kurbasy's visionary vocalists Maria Oneshchak and Natalia Rybka-Parkhomenko
share traditional Ukrainian songs of beauty, affirmation, and resilience in times of violence and resistance.
Singers of all ages, genders, backgrounds, and levels of experience
are welcome to participate!
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Kitka is grateful to our local Ukrainian community outreach partner
The
Leleka Foundation for helping us to promote these events. Click the logo below to learn more about Leleka's work providing live-saving
medical backpacks to Ukrainian communities under seige.
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Watch and listen to Kurbasy's moving interpretation of "Chervona
Kalyna"
The Chervona Kalyna (viburnum bush), with its bright red clusters of berries, has long been a symbol of Ukraine itself. It often appears in folk songs, embroidery, and decorative arts as a marker of homeland, rootedness, resilience and renewal.
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For lovers of Ukrainian music beyond the Bay Area,
check out Kurbasy's full US Tour Itinerary.
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In harmony,
The Women of KITKA
Erin, Janet, Juliana, Katya, Kelly, Kristine, Maclovia, Shira, Stacey,
and Talia
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Kitka photos by Jenya Chernoff, Kurbasy photos by Anastasiia Chibnyk
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Kitka's 2025-2026 season is supported, in part, by The William
and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The East Bay Community Foundation, Silk Road House, and our generous global village of individual donors
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