Cradle Songs

A Cosmic Dreamscape: The Haunting, Intimate World of Eastern European Lullabies Unfolds on Kitka's Cradle Songs The mother, the cradle, the voice, and the universe. Melodies born on dry slopes and in deep boreal forests to the joys and sorrows of families from villages in the Russian Far North to Armenia and Greece. This is the lullaby as revealed by America's preeminent Eastern European vocal ensemble and creative collective, Kitka. Kitka's latest album, Cradle Songs (Diaphonica Recordings; Nov. 3, 2009), is an unexpected, gentle journey through the traditions that shaped young dreams along the eastern edges of Europe, and a song-cycle that embraces the ensemble's personal sonic memories of childhood. The pastel smiles and hush-a-bye ditties many in the West associate with lullabies and children's songs are a world away from the pensive, magic-steeped, and sometimes dark songs sung over the cradles in Slavic, Balkan and Caucasian cultures. "These songs were not only about putting a baby to sleep. They summon something bigger, something cosmic,' muses Kitka singer Shira Cion. "We wanted to create something different than a purely sweet and sentimental album. We envisioned an album that captured all the depth and dimensions of motherhood." This quest for a different kind of lullaby project was sparked by Kitka's audiences, who urged the group to record a collection of the most elemental genre of woman's songs. The project took flight in a series of serendipitous meetings with the extraordinary Armenian singer, Hasmik Harutyunyan, who unveiled an entire landscape of lullabies that departed from the cute and cuddly. "The Armenian lullaby texts have stunningly beautiful poetry, with a lot of powerful, natural and cosmic imagery. But there are also lyrics that convey intense sadness and longing," Cion explains. "The songs tell histories of children and parents lost, of cultural genocide. In many Eastern European lullabies, the mother pours out all the grief, fears, and hopes in her soul when she sings to her child. Our close friend and mentor in Ukrainian folk song, Mariana Sadovska, even jokingly refers to some of the cradle songs from her native tradition as 'sadistic lullabies.'" 'At first, I found these lullabies really challenging," reflects Kitka singer Janet Kutulas, whose Greek family sang her one of the songs the group wove into "Nani, Nani, Kitka Mou." "They seemed almost inaccessibly dark. But the more you listen to them, the more and more beautiful they become. They aren't your stereotypical tra-la-la lullaby." As Kitka mined libraries and recordings, worked with traditional singers, and summoned early musical memories, they discovered more striking melodies that went far beyond simple, purely innocent tunes. The Georgian lullaby "Megruli Nana" harkens back to the ancient goddess of light and fertility, called Nana in Western Georgian languages, who is asked to protect the infant as they drift into the dangerous liminal place between wakefulness and dreamtime. Another Georgian song, "Es Ak'vani," is sung as a circle-dancing chorus ritually lays a baby in his cradle for the first time. "Oj Jano, Jano," from Macedonia, is almost an anti-lullaby, depicting a young husband asking his wife why they cannot conceive a child. The wife answers that when she was an infant, her mother cursed her with childlessness because she slept all day and wailed all night. "Dzurk, Dzurk," a lullaby of the Komi-the Finno-Ugric peoples of far northwestern Russia-mimics the sound of the birch cradle creaking as the baby is rocked. The ancient song came to Kitka as a serendipitous gift facilitated by 21st century technology. Kutulas discovered the melody in an old book, and with Cion, tried to learn more about the unfamiliar language. The key to unlocking the mysteries of the Komi-Zyrian language came via email, when one of Komi's most beloved singers sent mp3s of herself singing the song as she recalled it from childhood. "Here's this woman we've never met who somehow had access to a digital recorder," Kutulas gushes. "We were so enamored with the soundbites she sent that we seriously considered putting them on the CD." Yet the stark beauty of the Komi singer's performance and the other lullabies the group had gathered presented a unique challenge to Kitka: how to transform songs traditionally sung by a single mother's voice into pieces for an eight-voice ensemble that would capture listeners' imaginations and not lull them deeply into dreamland. "We really grappled with the idea of what the album would be like," Kutulas explains. "A lot of people had come up to us at concerts and said, pointedly, 'I hope you are making a CD we can put on so our child will go to sleep.' We said, 'yeah, sure, sure.' But when we thought about it, we wondered if we really wanted make an entire CD of slow sleepy songs. We went through a whole exploration, and settled upon a more varied, dreamscape-like collection of songs" The process unfolded ov