Kitka concert at St. Bede’s on Dec. 10 coincides with release of holiday album

Women’s vocal ensemble, Kitka, will bring its annual Wintersongs tour to St Bede’s Church in Menlo Park on Dec. 10, playing new holiday music from the recently-released CD titled Evening Star along with unusual seasonal music from a wide variety of Eastern European ethnic and spiritual traditions.

In celebration of their new CD, Kitka dedicates this year’s Wintersongs program to “the mystery and wonder of long winter nights,” explained Kitka’s Executive Artistic Director Shira Cion. “The lyrics of many of the songs on our new Evening Star album are poetically rich with celestial imagery of the moon and stars, as well as such wintry elements as frost, snow and storms.

“In Slavic mythology the Evening Star was a female deity associated with the planets Venus and Mercury. By some accounts she was a virgin goddess, and according to others she was the wife of the Moon god and mother of all the stars. Christian lore incorporated the Evening Star into the nativity story as the Star of Bethlehem.”

Evening Star can be previewed and purchased for $15 plus shipping and handling online.

The performance takes place at 4:00 pm on December 10. St. Bede’s is located at 2650 Sand Hill Road. Tickets ranging from $15 to $40 are available online.

Photo by Vincent Louis Carrella courtesy of Kitka