MZAZA at The Dust Temple (Gold Coast)

MZAZA 15th BIRTHDAY “TEENAGE CRISIS” TOUR

MZAZA have been a real revelation … They are just amazing! – SBS Radio

…a world where the past is ever-present and music knows no borders. FOUR STARS – The Courier Mail

Two-time Queensland Music Award winners MZAZA are celebrating their 15th birthday with a tour around their favourite South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales music spots. With one EP and two album releases, another album recorded and countless tours in Australia and Europe, these six friends have not wavered in their commitment to delivering Balkan-French sounds to sophisticated folk lovers. Led by enchanting French-Sephardic vocalist Pauline Maudy, this group of musicians from Bosnia, Latvia, Greece, Turkey, France and Australia has been mesmerising audiences with powerful and inspired performances.

With a fascination for making something new from the old, Mzaza’s writers and musicians skilfully create their own set of traditions from a tapestry of richly woven influences from France, the Balkans, the Middle East and Sephardic Spain. Driven by her French and Spanish Sephardic roots, front woman Pauline sings in French, Spanish, Ladino, English and Turkish. She is an enchanting stage leader who delivers powerful and inspired performances.

The impressive musicianship of Mzaza – deftly realised with accordion, violin, percussion, double bass and Flamenco guitar – embraces diversity, the old and the new, the familiar and the foreign, through timeless melodies. It is the timelessness of the music and story that fuels an intense live show, an unforgettable musical journey, that has enraptured audiences at MONA FOMA, Queensland Music Festival, Cygnet, National and Woodford Folk Festivals, and visited airwaves internationally. Jaw-dropping technique, unique compositions and captivating shows have earned Mzaza supports for the likes of Yasmin Levy (Israel) and DJ Click (France).

The band’s accomplished multi-instrumentalists play violin, kamanche tarhu (a spikefiddle of Persian ancestry), guitar, double bass, accordion, darabuka (Turkish hand percussion), cajon, tapan and bendir (frame drum). Members of Mzaza have studied with Spanish, Middle-Eastern and Balkan music masters in Australia, Greece, Turkey and Iran.

In 2018 MZAZA spent a week at Sierra Studios in Athens recording a third full-length album.

In 2015 MZAZA released Ghosts, an album mixed by ARIA-nominated engineer Robin Mai and featuring a collection of impressive musical collaborators. With much of the original material in French or English and inspired by Balkan music, Ghosts spent three weeks in the AMRAP Metro Charts, was feature album on Melbourne’s PBS and spent five weeks in 4ZZZ’s top 20.