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Vardos - Gypsy Music
Based in Melbourne
Gypsy and traditional music from Hungary and Romania
Vardos have enjoyed performing in Hungary and Romania, Transylvanian non-stop wedding dances and the latest horas and maneas from Bucharest.
Alana Hunt... "Violinist Alana Hunt is the live wire in chief, encouraging the audience to clap along - but in and at the right time please - by appearing menacingly at their tables, and regaling them with unlikely tales of drunken clocks, broken curfews and short-sighted shepherds" (Rob Adams, Edinburgh 2004)
Alana formed the band in 1993 in Perth, where Vardos worked professionally for five years. Alana made many trips to Hungary to study Hungarian folk music with Beata Salamon (Meta folk music band) and gypsy music with Miklos Konya.
Sofia Chapman... trained as a classical pianist until discovering and running away with the piano accordion in 1993. It has been said that she "could play Shakespeare's complete works with her eyebrows" (Herald, Edinburgh 2004).
Sofia played with Xenos Macedonian Gypsy Band for four years in Australia, Britain and Portugal, and has been a guest musician on CD's of Zulya Kamalova and Barb Dwyer.
Indra Buraczewska... since graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in classical violin has played in numerous bands in an amazing array of guises. She's been a saxophonoist in soul/blues bands, a fiddle player in Irish bands, an upright jazz bass player and has toured internationally.
Vardos was Indra's inspiration to explore the world of Eastern European music on double bass.
Vardos have played festivals in throughout Europe and Eastern Europe.
Performances within Australia include:
- The National Folk Festival
- Port Fairy Spring Music Festival
- Regional tour of Victoria with the Ethnic Communities through Western Australia and Tasmania and of course the Port Fairy Folk Festival.
- Numerous weddings
- Devised a show for the Collingwood Children's Farm and made a cameo appearance on Seachange (ABC TV)
- Four Winds Festival
- Victor Harbour Festival
- Illawarra Festival
- Cygnet Festival
- Cobargo and Fairbridge Folk Festivals
- The Bellingen Global Carnival
- The Queenscliff Music festival
- The National Multicultural Festival in Canberra
- The Alice Desert Festival and the Melbourne Festival where they launched their second CD to a sell-out crowd at the Famous Spiegeltent.
- The chill out zone "The Village" at the Falls Festival over the new year in Marion Bay
Television appearances in Australia include
- Cameos on Spicks and Specks ABC TV 2009
- The Footy Show Channel 9 2007
- Seachange (Series 3) ABC TV
- Feature in Ruth Cullen's documentary on artist Vali Myers, Painted Lady
Vardos have toured internationally to:
- New Zealand
- Noumea in New Caledonia
- Geneva in Switzerland
- Hungary
- United States
- Successful shows at the Famous Spiegeltent in the Edinburgh Fringe
- Nokia /Orange Spiegeltent in the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2003.
- Nominated for the 2003 BBC Radio3 World Music Awards (Audience Award)
- Edinburgh in 2004 where they received a 4 star review.
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