11am-3pm “New Problems of Old Music” Seminar
Topic: “Sound Lost - Sound Regained. Theoretical and practical problems of reconstruction of old and archaic musical traditions: the case of the Warszawa Wschodnia Ensemble working in the Russian village of Podseredneye. “
LECTURES
Vera Nikitina (Moscow State Conservatory)
Justyna Piernik („Warszawa Wschodnia” ensemble, “New Problems of Old Music” project)
Svetlana Vlasova (Gnesins Russian Academy of Music in Moscow)
FILM
Presentation of the film documentation on the “New Problems of Old Music” project.
CONCERT
Concert of the „Warszawa Wschodnia” ensemble performed by: Joanna Górska, Anna Jakowska, Jagna Knittel, Justyna Piernik, Taras Shumeyko, Cezary Szymański and Maniucha Bikont, Joanna Gancarczyk. Featuring guests: Svetlana Vlasova, Vera Nikitina.
Devoted to the past and present of the musical culture endemic to the Russian village of Podseredneye, the seminar will be an attempt to focus on the cultural transformations that during the last few decades have resulted in the decimation and eventual demise of old styles of musical performance and old-time repertoire as well as in the simplification of the textures of folk songs and musical stylings.
On the other hand, however, the seminar serves also as a means of presenting the substantial effects of the extensive research on and reconstruction of the village’s own musical, in particular vocal/singing, traditions. The village of Podseredneye is the place to which the members of the Polish Warszawa Wschodnia Ensemble have been travelling on a regular basis for 12 years, learnig the arcana of folk singing thanks to the expertise and patience of veteran singers, born even before the Second World War.
The village of Podseredneye was “discovered” by Russian ethnomusicologists in the 1960s when an impressively strong and substantial group of vocalists, following artistically into the footsteps of their forebears, was actively cultivating the traditions of polyphonic, improvised singing. In the 1980s and 1990s the village was frequently visited by researchers who recorded the singers, invited them to perform in various Russian towns and cities; the folk musicians toured the USA twice.
It was then that Vyera Nikitin’s most precious recordings came into existence. She compiled and edited a double LP entitled “Na Seredenskoy ulice”, which was recorded in 1981 and which contained songs performed by a group of 15-20 veteran singers, born as early as at the end of the nineteenth century and as late as in the 1930s. During field research conducted in the village of Podseredneye by Polish scholars in 2004 and 2005 only six of the people whom Vyera Nikitin recorded were alive; in the years 2012-13 only 4 of them survived. Then, due to the efforts of the local cultural institution the group of singers became expanded as gradually younger people - born after WWII, in the 1950s and 1960s - started to be introduced as its core members. As a result, both the sound and the repertoire of the group was altered. At that time, between 2004 and 2013, using archival and field recordings, scholars in Poland worked extensively on recreating the archaic sound of traditional music from Podseredneye. The results of the project that Vyera Nikitin was the head consultant of will be presented in detail during the seminar. Apart from speeches and lectures, the programme includes processional and lyrical songs performed by Warszawa Wschodnia.
Svetlana Vlasova - musicologist, academic, Professor at Gnesins Russian Academy of Music in Moscow as well as Head of the Centre for Ethnographic Programmes in Moscow. Vocalist and a long-time member of Narodnyj Prazdnik; currently, Vlasova is the musical director of Romoda. Vlasova is the author of numerous academic publications on traditional Russian music as well as an active participant and organiser of festivals, concerts and seminars devoted to the traditional culture and folklore of Russia.
Vera Nikitina – musicologist, employed at the Moscow State Conservatory. Nikitina is an author of numerous CD series and academic publications on traditional vocal music of many regions of Russia - the Belgorod region among others. Nikitina has conducted research in the village of Podseredni for 30 years. She was an editor of a double CD album "Na Seredenskoy ulice" and a monography of recordings from the village released last year within the "Voices of the Passing Century" series.
Justyna Piernik - educated as a philologist, Justyna is a journalist by profession and a traditional singer by passion. She is a member of the "Muzyka z drogi" ensemble, which she recently reactivated as "Warszawa Wschodnia". Since 1999 she has been recording, reconstructing and performing the traditional songs of several regions of Poland, Ukraine and Russia. Her main interest lies in the old vocal repertoire of the Russian-Ukrainian borderland and of south-western Russia.