BEMAC presents WORLD MUSIC CAFE: MZAZA & Vardos

BEMAC is bringing two-time Queensland Music Award winners MZAZA, and Melbourne’s gypsy folk trio Vardos, together for a World Music Café spiced with furious dancing, electrifying performances and the mesmerising music of Eastern Europe.

With their impressive musicianship, energetic live performances and phenomenal flair for reinventing musical traditions, both bands have firmly established themselves as leaders in Australia’s World Music scene, not only domestically but internationally as well.

And on Friday, 4 August, Brisbane audiences will have the rare privilege to be serenaded by both bands on one night under the Story Bridge.

MZAZA

With a fascination for making something new from the old, MZAZA’s writers and musicians flamboyantly craft their own set of traditions from a tapestry of richly woven influences born in France, the Balkans, the Middle East and Sephardic Spain.

Jaw-dropping technique, unique compositions and captivating shows have earned MZAZA supports for the likes of Yasmin Levy (Israel) and DJ Click (France).

This award-winning group of cultural refugees from Bosnia, Latvia, Greece, Turkey, France and Australia has enraptured audiences at MONA FOMA, Queensland Music Festival, Cygnet, National and Woodford Folk Festivals, and visited airwaves internationally.

Driven by her French and Spanish Sephardic roots, front woman Pauline Maudy sings in French, Spanish, Ladino, English and Turkish. She is an enchanting stage leader who delivers powerful and inspired performances to mesmerising musicianship deftly realised with accordion, violin, percussion, double bass and flamenco guitar.

This is a band of friends, who have found each other at the end of the world to make music that blurs geographical, temporal and musical boundaries.

It is this boundlessness of the music, coupled with their direct and celebratory connection with audiences around the globe that fuels an intense live show, and unforgettable musical journey.

Vardos

Driven by Alana Hunt’s wild violin, chased by accordion and double bass, Vardos play gypsy and traditional music learnt from Roma (Gypsy) musicians during their travels in Eastern Europe. They have been serenading audiences around the world since late last century.

Of Vardos, music reviewer Ian Dearden has said “to say these women are exceptional musicians is to cast the Pope as a part-time Catholic.”

Vardos have toured to every state in Australia, and delivered electrifying live performances at festivals that include the National, Port Fairy, Illawarra, Cobargo and Fairbridge Folk Festivals, the Queenscliff Music Festival, Alice Desert Festival, Dark MoFo Festival in Hobart and the Melbourne Festival where they launched the CD ‘Entertaining Countess Dracula’ to a sell-out crowd at the Famous Spiegeltent.

The fire-blooded trio has toured internationally to New Zealand, Noumea in New Caledonia, and Geneva in Switzerland and around Hungary, have showcased in the United States, and had successful shows at the Famous Spiegeltent in the Edinburgh Fringe and the Edinburgh International Book Festival Spiegeltent. Vardos were nominated for the 2003 BBC Radio3 World

The two most recent Vardos CD’s have been finalists for the Golden Fiddle Awards.