The San Francisco-based a cappella ensemble Slavyanka Chorus is presenting something new in its upcoming Bay Area concerts: a program of rarely heard works by women composers called “Songs of Faith, Love and Delight.”
Russian-Belarussian Irina Denisova, Serbians Dragana Velickovic and Ljubica Marić, Ukrainian Iryna Aleksiychuk and Bulgarian-British Dobrinka Tabakova are not composers whose names register with Westerners like Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff, including with respect to the Orthodox Christian liturgical compositions the chorus has performed for more than four decades.
Slavyanka Chorus Artistic Director Irina Shachneva says these female composers deserve to be heard. Many of them inspired her to curate the program of concerts on June 7-9 in Berkeley, Palo Alto and San Francisco churches.
“I’m always interested to do contemporary, unknown music, and Slavyanka is a choir that was organized 45 years ago and has been rooted in Slavic and Balkan music,” Shachneva says. “In the 19th and early 20th centuries we had mostly male composers, especially in the Russian Orthodox Church, but I did research and was surprised to find so many beautiful, contemporary compositions by women composers.”
All composers with works in the concert, except Marić (1909-2003), are living.
Tabakova might be most familiar to Western audiences. Her album “String Paths” was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2014. And her plush, soulful Concerto for Cello and Strings was the music for choreographer Val Caniparoli’s “Emergence,” which premiered at San Francisco Ballet’s next@90 festival in 2023.
Shachneva, the group’s artistic director since 2012, says stylistic inspirations of the program’s music vary. Tabakova’s work has a classical orientation that will sound familiar to Western European or American ears; liturgical compositions by Denisova reflect her background as a Russian Orthodox nun; and music by Velickovic, Marić and Aleksiychuk is rooted in the folk traditions of their respective countries.
The bulk of the program will be sung in Slavyanka’s signature a cappella style, which Shachneva says is different from vocal music accompanied by instruments and has its own distinct charms, as well as a long history.
“In traditional church music there are no instruments, no organ, no orchestra, a practice that has been a tradition for a thousand-plus years,” Shachneva explains. “When I’m doing pieces with an orchestra or an organ, it brings out different emotions, but with a cappella music I would say there is more of an inner feeling — this is the sound of the voice, and the sound of the voice is the sound of the soul.”
The chorus, organized in 1979 at San Francisco’s St. Ignatius Church, took the name “Slavyanka” after what Russian explorers in California called the Russian River. Originally an all-male group, Slavyanka today has 42 male and female singers: sopranos, altos, tenors and bassos.
The group, which typically presents two concerts each year, offers faith-based hymns, chants and spiritual verses in its springtime program. English translations of some composition titles are “A Star Flickered,” “The Song About the Tall Tree” (trees are symbols of life in Slavic music) and “Angels Come Down,” evocative of the concert’s name.
Shachneva found a unifying theme for all the works. She says, “When I was searching for composers and their works to include in this concert what was very important for me was the peacefulness of the compositions. This music brings hope and peace in my heart, which I believe women in general but especially mothers seek. And in this troubled time of so many wars it’s hope and peace that we need the most.”
Slavyanka Chorus’ “Songs of Faith, Love and Delight” is at 8 p.m. June 7 at St. Mark’s Church, 2300 Bancroft Way, Berkeley; 4 p.m. June 8 at First Congregational Church, 1985 Louis Road, Palo Alto; and 4 p.m. June 9 at Star of the Sea Church, 4420 Geary Blvd., San Francisco. For tickets ($25 general, free for those under 18), visit slavyankachorus.org.