Photograph by Grant Leslie

The Mara! Band's 40th Anniversary on 22 September (Lennox Theatre, Riverside Parramatta) was cancelled due to unforseen circumstances. We are currently rescheduling the concert for early 2025. Stay tuned for more details. We look forward to joining you then, to celebrate the Mara! Band's 40 year history of forging new directions in world/jazz here and abroad, as they perform highlights from their unique repertoire including groundbreaking original works 'Sezoni' and 'Tra Parole e Silenzio' with guests Martenitsa Choir. The concert will also feature selections from Mara!'s latest project 'Zashto?', in a special appearance by the Mara! Big Band. More

 

 

Photograph by Grant Leslie

We are delighted to announce the success of our grant application to Create NSW Regional Touring Fund for Mara! Big Band Mid-Nth Coast, Southern Tablelands & Central West NSW Tour in November 2024 to promote the CD of our original Australian suite 'Zashto?'.

We are extremely grateful to Create NSW for this invaluable support and humbled to have been chosen as one of 17 successful recipients of funding in this round. More

 

 

 

Album cover painting by Maryam Rad

Mara! Big Band launched their inaugural CD 'Zashto?' at the Great Club Marrickville on October 13, 2023 to a packed house. What a night it was!!

Digital downloads available at:

Spotify

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mara! Big Band line up...

Sandy Evans - soprano & tenor saxophones

Paul Cutlan - Eb & Bb clarinets, sopranino, alto and tenor saxophones & piccolo

Lloyd Swanton -double bass

Llew Kiek - bouzouki, baglama, mandolin, acoustic & electric guitars

Mara Kiek - voice & percussion

Andrew Robson - alto and baritone saxophones

James Greening - trombone, pocket trumpet & tuba

Sam Golding - flute, trumpet & tuba

Gary Daley - piano accordion

Jess Ciampa - drums & percussion

Jenny Dornan - voice (soprano)

Jarnie Birmingham - voice (alto)

Mara! Big Band EPK

 

 

 

 

Photograph by Wayne Leatham

The new Mara! and Martenitsa album 'Za Vas, Ot Nas' is on due for release in 2025. Recorded at Megaphon Studios, Universal Forbes St, and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, this album will showcase a wealth of previously unrecorded works composed and commissioned especially for Martenitsa Choir and the Mara! band.

Composers include Llew and Mara Kiek, Paul Cutlan, Laura Bishop and Sandy Evans in addition to Bulgaria's premier choral composer, the late Ivan Spasov. Librettists include Stephan Kozuharov, Marcia Malinova-Anthony, Silvia Entcheva and Mara Kiek.

Engineers Steve Morley, Chris Doherty and associate producer Guy Dickerson are also contributing their expertise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tra Parole E Silenzio Mara! and Martenitsa's latest CD

Tra Parole e Silenzio is a celebration of life's most precious and enduring treasures - love, home, family and friends, so exquisitely expressed in the poignantly tender poems of Eduardo Di Giovanni and stunningly interpreted by Mara! Band composers and performers Paul Cutlan, Andrew Robson, Steve Elphick, Llew Kiek, Mara Kiek and Sandy Evans, in collaboration with Silvia Entcheva, Naomi Vaughan and the magnificent Martenitsa choir. More about Tra Parole e Silenzio.

CD available from our online store.

from Froots (UK) Dec 2012

"The Sydney Morning Herald once referred to Mara! as "the Dom Perignon of (Australia's) World Music Bands", it was perhaps a touch premature, but this collaboration between the group and their Bulgarian-style choir certainly meets that appellation...an unqualified success with its feeling of fresh adventure, sumptuous singing and depth of musical experience."

Read Tra Parole CD review in "The Australian" of April 14, 2012