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When Music Plays...' - new work by Paul Cutlan
'When Music Plays...' traces a narrative of love, the emotive potency of music, fallibility, and the healing power of reflection. The language of each poem offers a different lens through which to appreciate life and the world ... each offering its own imagery and 'music'. For this project, the MARA! quintet is joined by the emotive colours of strings, led by Liisa Pallandi.
Two Sydney performances only ...
Thursday 2 October & Sunday 5 October 2025
Mara Kiek (vocal and percussion)
Llew Kiek (guitar and bouzouki)
Sandy Evans (soprano and tenor saxophones)
Paul Cutlan (composer, clarinets, alto flute)
Lloyd Swanton double bass
Liisa Pallandi violin
Riikka Sintonen violin
Beth Condon viola
Oliver Miller cello
More info
Mara! and Martenitsa new album "Za Vas Ot Nas"
Photograph by Wayne Leatham
The new Mara! and Martenitsa album Za Vas, Ot Nas (For You from Us) will be released in November 2025 and launched at 3 special concerts.
November 22 & 23: Bundanoon Folk Festival
November 28: Camelot Lounge Marrickville, Sydney - doors 7pm, concert 8pm
November 30: Hamilton Uniting Church, Newcastle - afternoon concert
Ticketing links coming soon
Recorded at Megaphon Studios, Universal Forbes St, and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, this album showcases 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 and Silvia Entcheva.
Engineers Steve Morley, Ross A'Hern, Chris Doherty and associate producer Guy Dickerson have also contributed.
More info
Mara! Big Band new album Zashto? now available
Digital downloads available at:
Spotify
Album Review Rhythms Magazine March_April edition
Album Review Sydney Morning Herald and The Age
Album cover painting by Maryam Rad
Photograph by Grant Leslie
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.
Live Review Jessie Cunniffe described the concert as "...a triumph and a treat" in her Sydney Morning Herald review of Mara! Big Band's world premiere performance of 'Zashto?' at Riverside Theatre Parramatta in March 2022.
Read full review here
Watch video Zashto? lineup
Photography by Grant Leslie
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)
with Bulgarian soloist Silvia Entcheva
Mara! Big Band's Zashto? project has been supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and Create NSW.
For more information on Mara! Big Band click here
Crossroads: work to continue on new album
After several years' hiatus due to the pandemic, Mara and Llew travelled to Brittany in early 2024 to work on their second album with Padrig Sicard from Quimper and Yann Cariou from Concarneau. They have now recorded much of the music, and aim to complete the album in 2026.
For more news
Tra Parole E Silenzio Mara! and Martenitsa's "Italian" 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
Listen to some of the music from Tra Parole E Silenzio:
Track 1: "Prima Della Sera"
Watch video featuring "Partii Ch'era Il Giorno di Natale" studio recording (from Tra Parole E Silenzio CD), featuring archival stills and live footage from Woodford Festival amphitheatre stage on Dec 31 2011.
This month's featured videos:
M'en Allant Sur la Lande
CrossRoads, from "De Partir...C'est Mon Plaisir" featuring Llew and Mara Kiek, Padrig Sicard, Yann Cariou, Steve Elphick and Bagad Cap Caval drummers
Mara! Electronic Press Kit here
Key photographers: Karen Steaines, Regis Lansac, Steve Turner, Jo Van der Meer, Tracey Schramm and Jim Rolon. Designers Michele Turcsanyi and Ibi Szentirmay. Webdesigner Bradley Major
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