Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Serbian Church Choirs: A Musical Tradition

SERBIAN CHURCH CHOIRS: A Musical Tradition

Part I

INTRO: The Serbian Orthodox Christian religion embraces cherished traditions: ornate churches trimmed in bright turquoise and gold leaf. Hand-painted icons. Candles and incense. The sound of a priest who sings the prayers. And a choir that responds in 4-part harmony. There are approximately 50 Serbian church choirs in the United States and Canada and they are deeply linked to the Serbian identity. Through world wars, civil wars, and communism, the choirs are a constant. In the first of a two-part series about Serbian choral music and its role within the church, Cissy Rebich returns to the Serbian community where she grew up to see if Serbian choirs are as alive today as they were when she left home 30 years ago.

When I was a teenager and my friends were listening to the sounds of Motown or the Beatles, this was one of my favorite songs. [Music: Praise Ye the Name of the Lord]

I love how the men start and then the women join in. [music: Praise ye], The music swells up together for a moment. And they all die down at the end of the line.

As a teenager, I sang in this choir. And to me, singing this song kinda felt like flying on a magic carpet and then coming back home.

My parents were first generation American Serbs and I grew up in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, a small town northwest of Pittsburgh that?s home to a Serbian community mixed in with other Eastern Europeans, Italians, and blacks. When I was growing up in the 50?s, most non-Serbs would ask: ?Serbian? What?s that? Is that from Siberia??

So my mother taught me about Serbian history. And she was adamant about one thing: you can?t separate the identity of the Serbian people from their religion. And that means the music. [Music: Svjat, svjat, svjat Gospod sabaot]

This is my choir singing in church. The words translate as: Holy Lord, god of Sabbath.

My mother died in 1993 during the early years of the Bosnian wars between ethnic Albanians, Croatians, and Serbs. She didn?t live through the talk of genocide or the change in the global reputation of the Serbs after that. I wanted to see if what she said then is true today. That the Serbian identity is still inseparable from the religion.

I went to the church first to find out.
[sound of church bells throughout next narrative]

It?s just before 10 on a Sunday morning in late October. [sound of door opening and closing] Kathy Loverich enters through the heavy oak doors of the St. Elijah Serbian Orthodox church in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. [sound of footsteps] She is climbing the steps to the choir loft in the back. Kathy?s the choir director here and she whispers greetings to her singers as they arrive. [sounds of whispered greetings.]

The choir quietly readies to sing the responses to the priest?s prayers during the Sunday service. It?s called the Divine Liturgy and lasts about an hour and a half. The entire service is sung by the priest and the choir.
[sound: shuffling papers, bells inside the church, throat clearing,]

Everyone is ready. The priest, Father Stevan, begins the opening prayer [Priest: Blagosloveno Carstvo Oca I Sina I svetoga Duha, [begin to fade out] sad I uvek I u svjet I vjekove] translated as: Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages.

Before each response, Kathy blows a note on a pitch pipe and hums the pitches for each section. On her downbeat, the choir sings the response, [Music, Choir: Amin] which is ?Amen.?

Kathy is a petite, energetic dynamo. Although we were teenagers together, her son is now in college and her short, blond hair is streaked with silver strands. She?s been directing the choir for more than 15 years and she gets tears in her eyes when she talks about it.

KL: The choir is my life. It?s my inspiration; it?s who I am. Our choir members inspire me; they bring to me what it means to be Serbian Orthodox every Sunday.

Kathy says at St. Elijah, the priest and the choir work particularly well together. Father Stevan has a great voice. [music: priest sings Antiphon with choir response] He sings a series of petitions?this one asks God to send an Angel of Peace.

Kathy leads the choir in the response to the petitions, ?Podaj Gospodi,? which means, Grant it, O Lord. She says she loves the unique view she gets as she conducts.

KL: And to watch the faces that I see. Singing from their hearts and praying so hard from their hearts to make whatever?s happening in their life that week. You know, that maybe you touched that one person.

Now we come to a song called the ?Thrice Holy Hymn.? [Song: Ize heruvimi; Thrice Holy hymn] It?s at the most reverent part of the service, as the choir sings ?Lay aside all earthly cares.?

[Sound: Continue with remainder of piece Ize heruvimi]

I like the moving notes of the tenor part here. One of the tenors singing is Larry Maravich. He died shortly after our interview and is sorely missed by the people in the parish. At 93, he was in the choir since it began, 75 years ago. He was everybody?s historian.

LM: We decided that our best pursuit and our best survival mechanism would be a choir that sang in church. We started a small group and started to realize we were having fun the same time we were singing in the choir.

We sit and talk in his kitchen, [Sound: voices and background in kitchen] the typical center of a Serbian home. There?s a jeweled cross on the wall, along with an icon of St. Nicholas, the family?s patron saint. Back in 1930, Larry helped combine two Serbian social groups to create the St. Elijah choir.

LM: And that?s our primary mission to enhance the services and anything else that involves Serbianism and our culture and our heritage.

The Serbian identity and religion are deeply rooted in survival. Many say it began at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, where the Serbs were defeated by the Moslem armies of the Ottoman Empire, leading to five centuries of Turkish rule.

LM: I think Kosovo is the turning point. That really established that the Serbs had a religious identity. They were not to be subdued and they fought not only for the protection and preservation of Serbia but for the church and that Serbianism are one.

Through Turkish rule, world wars, communism, and even emigration to America, Serbian culture continued to survive. From 1880 to 1914, many Serbs settled in western mining areas and the big industrial cities of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Chicago. Larry says forming church choirs seemed to help keep the Serbian culture and heritage alive in a new country.

LM: We wanted to show that we were a national people. Not just another group of immigrants that decided to open a bar and a club and play poker.

And the answer was the church choir. Larry says that one of the great things about singing in the choir is that you can climb up to the choir loft in any Serbian church, join your section, and you feel at home.

LM: Not just Aliquippa Serbs and St. Elijah. This is universal.

Today, approximately 50 choirs are held together by the SSF, the Serbian Singing Federation. Nearly 80 years old, the SSF sponsors a festival concert each year. In 2007, it was held in Milwaukee at a Serbian church school.

[Sound from rehearsal room at Festival].

St. Elijah has made the trip and is singing an arrangement of Serbian folk songs for the first time. Right before the concert begins, director Kathy Loverich gives some last minute instructions.

KL: I want you to go up there. I want you to smile, I want you to have fun. And I want you to give me what I?ve tried to give you.

Everyone is a little nervous about performing the new piece.

[sound of everyone chanting]

Before they go on stage, everyone recites the Lord?s Prayer in Serbian,
and everyone drinks a shot of whiskey. Kathy says they drink to remember those singers who have died.

KL: So, our shot, everybody?I love you. Try your best.

[crowd sounds in the concert hall].
St. Elijah is last on the program today. It?s time for them to sing their new piece. Their excitement reaches its peak.
[ending of medley with applause]

After the concert, I speak to both directors and singers. They?re not professional musicians, and most of them don?t read music. But they sing because of the feeling they get. Coming from a sense of their heritage, but even more than that, they tell me it?s the feeling of community.

There are times during some of the holiest parts of the liturgy, where you literally get goosebumps. And you feel, Look, God, if you?re going to take me, do it now, because I don?t care.

I love singing in church?singing responses in church on Sunday. I feel like I?m an angel when I?m up there.

Once in a while where you have those perfect days?that?s what keeps you coming back.

[Song: Kedrova?s Oce Nas

Back in Aliquippa, it?s Sunday again, about halfway through the service. Kathy Loverich is conducting the Lord?s Prayer. Listen to how smooth and sustained the sound is. It seems like the singers never breathe.

[end of song played through next narration]

I glance over at the tenor section and picture where my father used to stand, singing every Sunday before he died.
And I look at Kathy at the podium and imagine my mother giving the pitches and the downbeat. She was the choir director before Kathy. I get choked up, but I?m so grateful for this place where memories of my parents are still alive. The singers love to tell me stories about choir trips they took, whiskey they drank, and laughs they had. And the sound of the music is still there.

I?m Cissy Rebich, Columbia Radio News.

Part II

INTRO: In the second part of this two-part series on Serbian church choirs, reporter Cissy Rebich looks at how the church survived extreme periods of repression over the centuries and how the traditions are being passed on to future generations. Like in many other ethnic groups, Serbs in places as different as urban NYC and remote Sudbury, Ontario search for ways to appeal to teenagers to learn about their heritage. Although the distinctive sustained sound is exotic to the non-Serbian ear, it is the backbone of the church service.

On a recent October evening, Father Djokan Majstorovic is working in his office at the St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral on West 25th Street. He is interrupted by parishioners who have stopped by to say hello. [sound of doorbell and conversation in Serbian] Father Djokan has dark hair and a goatee and he speaks with a part Serbian, part British accent. Born in Bosnia, he was the priest in Birmingham England for six years before coming to the United States. He says there are a lot of recent Serbian immigrants in his congregation and choir.

DM: I am so happy to see how in America here we cherish and protect and enhance this beautiful singing. Not only spiritual, but other singing, too.

St. Sava?s is the only Serbian church in New York City and the suburbs. Some of the choir members have to travel a long way to participate. They have only 10 members and Father Djokan says it?s tough to get them together.

DM: Basically in choir sing people who are usually students or young workers. And then, they live in Brooklyn and Queens and they don?t have much time to invest, but they do love and they do their best.

[Music: Svatij Boze, St. Sava NYC choir]

This is their small choir singing a hymn at the beginning of a recent Sunday service. The music has been handed down through the generations. Father Djokan says that in the Serbian church service, the priest and the choir have specific jobs to do.

DM: In our service, there is like a conversation. Priest say one thing, the choir affirms. ?Let us pray to the Lord.? Choir says, ?Lord have mercy.?

[sound: priest chanting and choir response: Amin]

And he confirms what other Serbians have said, that the church and the choir have always been the center of the Serbian identity. [sound: cathedral room tone]
DM: Church was the only institution that cared, protected, led, comforted in every aspect of life, church did for the people. And at that time people were not very much educated. They saw that the church is their mother.

After 500 years of Turkish rule, Serbian nationalism was suppressed again?this time after World War II by communist leader Josip Broz Tito, who ruled Yugoslavia from the 1940?s until his death in 1980. In fact, Father Djokan says, Tito created a new ?nationality? for the Serbs: Yugoslavian. And within Yugoslavia, religion was not encouraged.

DM: If you are a Serb, you?re supposed to be Orthodox. Today, it?s not like that.

In the US, there?s a big difference between the roughly 134-thousand who call themselves Serbian and nearly 380-thousand who call themselves Yugoslavian. Father Djokan says one of the key differences is the relationship to the church.
[room tone of NYC church on Sunday]

DM: You see, in this City, you have thousands of Serbs. this is Tito?s offspring. And they don?t care for Serbs, for Serbian church, they just care for themselves for their personal prosperity, you know, that?s it.

Father Djokan, who was born in Bosnia, tells me his views of how the war started in the late 80?s. He says that before the war, Serbs, Croatians and Moslems got along very well together. But when Yugoslavia started to break up, there was a rush to claim the national resources and property that had been previously shared.

DM: But eventually, when everybody wanted to grab not only what was theirs, but what was ours, then we woke up. But the biggest problem is we are blamed for everything. And I don?t say that we were good, but equally bad as we were, Serbs, Croats and Muslims did things which were not fair, and nice, and human.

And so, he quotes from the Beatitudes in the Bible.

DM: You know, as it says blessed are you when they persecute you and say all kind of lies against you for my name?s sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad.

[Sound: choir singing Beatitudes: Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven]

This is the sound of my hometown choir singing that exact verse from the Beatitudes: The one that Father Djokan just quoted. Donna August is in the soprano section here. A former choir director she?s been singing in the choir for thirty years. She says that the negative press about the Serbs has brought everyone a little closer together.

Because we know as a people that our people are not bad people. We love God, we love our heritage, we love our faith. We love everything about being Serbian and there is nobody in this world who can take that away from us. Our heritage and our nationality and our religion are all entwined and you can?t separate one from the other.

The combination of religion and nationality that Donna mentions is like an emotional bond that holds the singers together. And Serbian singers become emotional when they start to sound like one voice. The music is smoothly sung?the notes are connected to each other without a break. This style of music was developed in Eastern Europe, where only the human voice is considered appropriate for musical expression in the Church. So instruments are never used.

[Sound: Andy Muha, chanting ?Oh, Lord, save thy people and bless thine inheritance.?]

For this reason, Serbian choirs sing in 4-part harmony without instruments, or a cappella, which means literally, ?in the style of the chapel.? This is a women?s choir in Smederevo, Serbia singing a folk song about what lies over the hills.

[Song: Young Women?s Choir Smederevo, Serbia Onamo, namo. ]

This is a men?s choir from the Pittsburgh area. Listen to them repeat Gospodi Pomiluj, or ?Lord have mercy? many times, very quickly. [Song: Soul of Tsar Lazar, ?Gospodi Pomiluj]

[Sound: room tone and background of rehearsal at the SSF workshop]
To help choir members learn this style of singing, the Serbian Singing Federation offers a workshop every year, to develop the uniqueness of Serbian music. In 2007, it was held in Windsor, Ontario.
[Sound: Lazich?s rehearsal from workshop]

I sat in on some of the lectures and rehearsals. Milutin Lazich, one of the instructors, is a retired college professor, with over 35 years of experience in teaching choral singing. He tells the singers to think about the story and not just sing the notes.

ML: (He sings, demonstrating) You are communicating. You are saying something. Yes? Communicate! (He gives pitch) Ya, dah, ya, dah, dum. Verse three!

After a weekend of instruction, camaraderie, and practice, this is what the finished song sounds like. This is ?Bruje tiho zvucna zvona?: ?The bells are gently ringing?
[Song: Bruje tiho zvucna zvona ]

One of the participants, Sandra Zubac, lives in Sudbury, Ontario, a small town in a remote area about 250 miles north of Toronto. Although she doesn?t know many other Serbian singers, she tells me about the special bond she feels when she sings in church. It evokes such emotion, she can barely get the words out.

SZ: When you sing together, especially in a small church, sometimes the only people who are in the church are priest, his wife, his children and the choir. It doesn?t matter. There?s a feeling of spirituality when you come together and you?re singing these songs that tie you together. And we know that at the same time all across the planet all across Northern America, we?re joining in. At the very same time.

Such an emotional bond should be preserved, and so Serbian parents, just as in other ethnic groups, try to instill it within the next generation. From Windsor, I return to the Aliquippa church to speak with Diane Volitich Knapp. She?s the current president of the St. Elijah Choir. At 41, she sings soprano every Sunday, standing beside her mother, Marlene, who is 70. Soon, for the first time, the Aliquippa choir is going to have three generations singing side by side in the soprano section when Elissa, Diane?s 12-year-old daughter, joins the choir.

DVK: Now, she?s trying to get used to the music and stuff. She?s not in the choir but she?ll stand up there and sing for a little bit. I think that?s what I did, actually.

In the meantime, as choir president, Diane says people are so busy these days, it?s easy for them to forget about the choir, but she has a goal: to keep it alive so that her children can experience it as she did.

DVK: 1:24 I know how much fun I had and I just want them to have the opportunity to have the same kind of togetherness and friends and all that kind of stuff and get what I got out of it.

As choir director, Kathy Loverich tries to keep the young people engaged. She?s got a strategy: to give them recognition. They now have a junior choir with 30 singers, ranging in age from three to 16.

KL: We?re trying to use them by giving them the solos now. So they have to be here so they can sing their solos. But you train them and give them those jobs so they can stay with us.

This is the voice of Daniel August. [Sound: Choir ?Vjeruju,? with Daniel August solo first line]
He?s a sophomore in college and he is singing a solo in the Aliquippa church for the first time. He sings the opening verse of the Nicene Creed, ?I believe in one God,? while the other voices sustain notes to support him.
[Sound: ending, last line of ?Vjeruju?]

Daniel tells me about sharing that special bond. Even with all the negative things reported about the Serbs in the last decade, Daniel says he still feels proud to carry on the tradition of singing in the choir.

DA: I know that what we?re doing is good. And no matter what else is happening in the world, this is always going to be something that we?re doing that?s good and other people are sharing in.

To the director, Kathy Loverich, and many of her singers, the choir seems to be the safeguard of the Serbian identity.

KL: You need to know who you are, where we come from and keep the cultural traditions, because if you lose it, we will never, ever, ever have it again.. This is who we are. This is us and we will keep it forever and ever. Amen.

[Song: Praise ye the name of the Lord throughout the next narrative]

I left my hometown and my Serbian choir more than 30 years ago, but I returned to find the St. Elijah choir still there. The bells ring, the priest sings the prayers, and the choir responds through song to lift the hearts of the congregation and keeps the culture alive. And we hear the sound of the Serbian church choir. Still going strong.

I?m Cissy Rebich, Columbia Radio News.

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