Marika Kuzma
I have enjoyed a multifaceted career as a conductor, university professor, music scholar, and actor, leading concerts in prestigious venues, collaborating with renowned artists, teaching one-on-one, publishing articles and books. Each aspect of my work informs the other. I aim to create beautiful, meaningful, and memorable experiences with fellow artists for varied audiences. Here is a link to my latest concert for Cal Performances.
As a Conductor, I have led performances of professional and amateur ensembles across the Americas. While leading choirs at the University of California, Berkeley, my repertoire ranged from the chants of Hildegard to the Bach B minor Mass to the Verdi Requiem to Stravinsky Les noces to premieres of works by current composers. Among the venues where I have performed: Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall; Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, CA; the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine; Stephansdom in Vienna, Austria. Recently, I have guest conducted the Cape Cod Symphony, a Handel Messiah in North Carolina, a concert of varied works in Argentina.
Today, I am interested in creating events that combine various art forms and raise awareness of societal issues. Given the current war and my Ukrainian heritage, I have been leading many concerts of Ukraine’s music and poetry coast to coast with my professional chamber choir Ensemble Cherubim and with choirs including the St. Joseph’s Cathedral Choir in Hartford, Cappella Romana in Portland, and a combined choir with members of the Oratorio Society of New York and The Washington Chorus.
As a Chorus Master, I have prepared choirs for leading conductors of my generation and the next. In 2024, Keri-Lynn Wilson invited me to coach a choir for a performance at Zankel Hall with the Kyiv Camerata. Subsequently, Peter Gelb invited me to prepare choirs for concerts of Beethoven 9 with the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra under Maestra Wilson at St. John the Divine NYC and the Kennedy Center. In earlier years, I collaborated with Gustavo Dudamel (Simon Bolivar Orquesta); the Mark Morris Dance Group; Jane Glover and Nicholas McGegan (Philharmonia Baroque); Kent Nagano (Orchestre symphonique de Montréal), and others.
My own concerts as well as collaborations have received enthusiastic reviews in the New York Times, Le Devoir, Opera News, San Francisco Chronicle, and others.
As a choral music scholar and explorer, I have published articles in journals such as the Journal of Musicology, Choral Journal, and Musik und Kirche, made recordings on the Bridge, Koch, and Naxos labels, and given lectures internationally. Ukrainian choral music is my expertise, and I have published extensively on D. Bortniansky. Recently, I published the book Carols of Birds, Bells, and Sacred Hymns from Ukraine: an Anthology and Cultural Companion, which has been praised by esteemed choral directors and historian Serhii Plokhy. I’ve enjoyed giving talks at universities and community centers to share this little-known repertoire and the inspiring stories surrounding it. My recording of Ukrainian carols with Ensemble Cherubim will be released this year on the Centaur label. Currently, I’m engaged in the Ukrainian History Global Initiative led by Timothy Snyder.
Inhale.
I received my earliest musical training at home—my family sang together constantly—and at the Hartt School of Music in violin and voice. My passion for music led me to study at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Salzburg Mozarteum; Vienna Hochschule für Musik; Stanford University; and to attain a doctorate in choral conducting from Indiana University. I also studied orchestral conducting at the Aspen Music Festival. I call upon my training as both a singer and instrumentalist, both choral and orchestral conductor, a sensitivity to languages and cultures, and (in the last decade) my experience as an actor onstage and in film. I believe each of these helps bring music to life in performance.
Exhale.
After almost thirty years living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area, I returned to my home state Connecticut in 2019. Since then I have enjoyed collaborating with artists such as the Paul Winter Consort, Cape Cod Symphony, organist Ezequiel Menendez, violinists Solomiya Ivakhiv and Karen Bentley Pollick, actor L. Peter Callender, and mezzo soprano Frederica von Stade.
I look forward to meeting you and making music with you—on either coast. Please feel free to be in touch for collaborations great and small.
New Inspiration.