Photo by Grant Leslie

Announcing the long awaited release of the Mara! Big Band album Zashto?

The Music

60 incredible minutes of original music by the Mara! Big Band focusing on the migrant experience in Australia and the spectre of incarceration (physical and psychological) hovering over it in the past 235 years. Three women (Irish, Bulgarian & Iranian) speak to us from different times and different circumstances of the trauma that scarred them and we pose the question Zashto?

The Band

This dynamite 13-piece ensemble, sits between the Eastern European Gypsy brass band and jazz big band traditions. A line-up of Australian jazz and world music royalty - on woodwinds Sandy Evans, Paul Cutlan & Andrew Robson, on brass James Greening & Sam Golding, with a killer rhythm section in Lloyd Swanton, Llew Kiek, Gary Daley & Jess Ciampa and stunning vocals from Silvia Entcheva, Jenny Dornan, Jarnie Birmingham and Mara Kiek.

When & Where Can I See Them?...

Friday 13 October, 8pm At The Great Club, 160 - 164 Livingston Road, Marrickville. Do not miss this rare opportunity to hear the band LIVE!!!! Limited seating so get in early! Book Tickets Here

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 is on track for release in November 2023. 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