Jazz and Vocal Improvisation with the Lithuanian kanklės
Our 2021 program is enhanced by the inclusion of performances by accomplished musicians and composers. These performances are included during interludes between sessions, and are also available to view at any time in our “On Demand” page.
Simona Smirnova
Simona Smirnova is a Lithuanian born jazz vocalist, composer and kanklės player based in New York City. She’s a fixture in the New York live scene with her quartet when she’s not touring the world, including Australia, New Zealand and Europe.
Simona’s genre-bending style has a unique theatrical flavor and uncanny vocal improvisation techniques. She deftly implements chamber music, Lithuanian zither – kanklės – and folkloric chants into foundations of jazz and rock.
Simona’s latest album, Joan of Arc, for String Quartet, is an original composition written as a soundtrack for the classic Carl Dreyer silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). The album is a cinematic landscape of chamber pop, jazz and folklore.
Classically trained on the kanklės, Simona earned her BA in jazz vocals at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater. Shortly after receiving the European Touring Scholarship, she moved to the United States to study at Berklee College of Music where she earned a degree in Contemporary Composition and Production.
Our thanks to Giedrė Elekšytė-Knieža, Chair of Lithuanian American Community Cultural Affairs, for her help in connecting us with Simona’s work.
Registration for symposium recordings is now available to the public! Register here.
To give you plenty of time to view the program at leisure, all sessions will remain available, to those who register, until the end of July 2022.
“Wisdom Across the Ages: An International Women’s Art Exhibition”
July 7 – December 31 2021
ASWM Online Art Gallery
Association for the Study of Women and Mythology
Artemisia Gentileschi Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting
We are delighted to announce the opening of our inaugural juried exhibition in ASWM’s new online art gallery. This exhibition of works by 45 artists and filmmakers from around the world was created in concert with our 2021 online symposium, “Wisdom Across the Ages: A Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Archaeomythologist Marija Gimbutas.”
Our organization was founded by women who appreciated the essential role of the arts in developing, promoting, and inspiring scholarship and research.
Patricia Monaghan
Patricia Monaghan was not only the author and editor of many books about goddess scholarship; she was also an internationally recognized poet. Pat’s well-crafted words continue to find their way into performances, ceremonies and women’s life passages. Sid Reger is a visual artist with a happy background in feminist theatre. She has also created and promoted festivals and arts events on local, national, and international stages.
Sid says, “We understood from the beginning that all of the arts were essential sources of inspiration and collaboration for scholarship. Many artists are scholars, and vice versa, and we were always excited to see what happens when they meet in the same room. We were guided by one simple idea: Change the images (or words or dances), and you can change the world.”
Mary B Kelly, 2011 Keynote
We dedicate this exhibition and the gallery itself to our beloved artist-foremothers, Mary B. Kelly and Lydia Ruyle.
Lydia Ruyle, Aloha!
The exhibition runs from July 7 to December 31 in our gallery and is open to the general public.
To give you plenty of time to view the program at leisure, all sessions will remain available, to those who register, for twelve months following the event.
New Compositions Inspired by Lithuanian Folk Music
Our 2021 program is enhanced by the inclusion of performances by accomplished musicians and composers. These performances are included during interludes between sessions, and are also available to view at any time in our “On Demand” page.
We are pleased to be able to present new works performed by the Kalnas Ensemble. The Ensemble, which began performing right before the pandemic shutdowns, has happily recovered from that hiatus to be able to record recent concerts. The Ensemble is a string quartet focusing on Lithuanian musical roots, exploring compositions of Stanley Chepaitis with improvisatory overtones, as well as performing standard quartet repertoire. The ensemble is a diverse group of multi-talented individuals with a commitment to engaging audiences with a dynamic approach to live performance. In addition their wide spectrum of knowledge and interests allows them offer workshops and other interactive presentations that enhance the meaning and experience of the music they perform.
The Kalnas Ensemble, 2021
Dr. Chepaitis has provided these original folksongs that inspired his compositions:
Dr. Stanley Chepaitis, founder, composer, and Violinist, holds a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree and a Master of Music, as well as a Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music. He is a versatile performing and recording artist who is at home in a classical string quartet, a jazz band, and anything in between. His career spans fifty years in which time he has performed nationally and internationally, composed and premiered his own works, and recorded seven CD’s mostly of original music. Dr. Chepaitis has been at the forefront of the Alternative Styles Movement having had a leading role in ASTA Alternative Styles Conferences.
Swana Chepaitis, Violinist, received a diploma in Violin Performance and Pedagogy from the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen Germany. She studied with Maria Grevesmühl and Baroque violin specialist Christoph Heidemann. She has been a member of L’arco (a professional Baroque orchestra based in Hanover, Germany), the Litton String Quartet. Mrs. Chepaitis currently performs with the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra, does freelance performance as a baroque violinist in the Pittsburgh area, and maintains a studio of 20+ violin students in Indiana, PA.
Simon Maurer, Violin, Baroque Violin, Viola ,studied violin at the Conservatory in Biel, and continued his studies in the U.S. with Geoffrey Michaels, Joyce Robbins and Claire Hodkins. He is the founder and artistic director of Sunday Sinfonia, a String Orchestra of enthusiastic amateur string players, based in Lancaster, Pa. Mr. Maurer is the artistic director of the Gabriel Chamber Ensemble, a group that takes pride in bringing classical music to underserved areas. In 2010 the Gabriel Chamber Ensemble took over the leadership of the Schuyllkill Youth Orchestra, newly renamed Gabriel Youth Orchestra. Mr. Maurer also ventures in the practice of jazz and freestyle improvisation. He has been a featured soloist in Philadelphia area jazz clubs, has performed at “Jazzfest” in Schuylkill County and Reading Pa.
Nancy Baun, Cellist, has performed over 1,000 events throughout the United States, including three appearances at Carnegie’s Weil Hall, as well as in Switzerland, France, Italy, Iceland, and Canada. She appears on nine piano trio recordings, including a series on the Naxos International label “Home for the Holidays”, a favorite of Public Radio audiences. Her favorite highlights also include judging the semifinals of the renowned Koussevitzky Competition in New York City, and performing in a World Music Institute event at Merkin Concert Hall. She has been an elementary music teacher for over 10 years in urban Buffalo, where she designed curriculum for her passion, “collaborative connections with music”. She has received a national Young Audiences grant for her education workshops integrating music with drawing. She currently presents S. T. E. A. M. training to elementary teachers, as well as using music to teach life skills to formerly incarcerated.
Registration for symposium recordings is now available to the public! Register here.
To give you plenty of time to view the program at leisure, all sessions will remain available, to those who register, until the end of July 2022.
Recently we invited our advisory board members to tell us what is on their minds these days, to share their current projects, milestones, and emerging collaborations. Judy’s is the second report in this series.
Judy Grahn
The excitement of three new publications all in the same season is overwhelming me with gratitude. Nightboat Books in collaboration with Julie Enszer of Sinister Wisdom have produced a gorgeous edition of Eruptions of Inanna: Justice, Gender, and Erotic Power. This set of essays retells some of her lesser-known stories interwoven with her well-known stories and compares the work of one of her poets with crucial passages in the Book of Job. Inanna continues to step forward as relevant to our times—a tangible, real power—the more we learn about her.
Equally beautifully designed in its own way (the cat on the cover!), Touching Creatures, Touching Spirit: Living in a Sentient World is out from Red Hen Press in Pasadena. I used some of these true stories as the basis for my February salon for ASWM. I enjoyed this event immensely, as who doesn’t love talking about creatures and psychic interactions to an audience of spiritual cultural feminists? I find that my stories, some of which scared me to write, inspire people to remember and tell their own stories and that is just what needs to happen.
Thirdly, Gregory Gajus at Commonality Institute (which promotes my work) designed a powerful small volume, Descent to the Roses of a Family: A Poet’s Journey into Anti-Racism for Personal and Social Healing. My friend and colleague Dianne Jenett and I taught this fourteen-page poem and backstory notes as an experimental approach to dissolving white supremacy from within the white psyche, letting participants get out of their heads and into their own experiences, especially those of childhood. Our first set of four classes has had some promising breakthroughs, so we may continue. We also plan to teach a summer course on goddess Inanna’s literature, addressing gender, justice, and erotic power, co-sponsored by D’vorah Grenn’s Lilith’s Circle, and Commonality Institute.
I have other plans to write study notes for each of my nine-part social justice poems (all of which are collected in Hanging on Our Own Bones). I may take on Mental next. And Gregory is urging me to write an updated introduction so he can produce a new edition of my 1984 book, Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds. Is this all too much effort? Nope. Feels good, gives me some optimism.
As a special feature of our 2021 Symposium program, we are delighted to present a collaborative poetry performance in tribute to Marija Gimbutas. “An Exaltation of Goddesses” is a mythological tour of goddesses created by thirteen international poets.
The amazing poets/goddesses presenting include Annie Finch (*Friya), Jurgita Jasponyte (Zemyna), Ann Filemyr (Brigid) Marianela Medrano (Ataberya), Richelle Slota (Cybele), Mary Mackey (Xori), Yona Harvey (Nana Buruku), Monica Mody (Saraswati), Arundhati Subramaniam (Neeli Mariamman), Raina Leon (Nyx),Anna Halberstadt (Dalia), Purvi Shah (Kali), and Judy Grahn (Aruru).
“An Exaltation of Goddesses” is a creation of Dr. Annie Finch and Poetry Witch Ritual Theater Productions. It is scheduled for Friday July 16 at 5:30pm Eastern Daylight Time. It will also be available in the “On Demand” content page for viewing at other times.
Special thanks to Annie Finch and the talented women of the Poetry Witch Community for sharing their work in this unique celebration. Annie says the Community “brings together women poets and poetry lovers, feminists, and women-centered spiritual seekers and practitioners from around the world. We practice poetry, scansion, and magic, weave webs of connection and empowerment–and explore the rhythmic languages of poetry and life–so we can learn to craft our lives and words in more joyfully powerful ways.”
A commemorative book of these 13 poems, along with each poet’s meditation on her Goddess, is being published in conjunction with the performance. Copies of this keepsake book, entitled An Exaltation of Goddesses: Poems for the Divine Feminine, are available from Poetry Witch Press.
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