Mia Zabelka

"Mia Zabelka is world class"
Pauline Oliveros 2009

"Mia Zabelka is a genius on the Violin"   
V:NM Festival Graz

Mia Zabelka, composer, electric violinist and vocalist from Vienna, lives in the Austrian region of southern Styria.

 

Amongst Jon Rose and Malcolm Goldstein she has the international reputation of one of the most innovative freestyle Violin Players of the World. As a composer and performer of improvised, experimental and electro-acoustic music she has developed a unique language based on the de- and reconstruction of the violin’s sonic possibilities, expanding the instrument using live electronic effects and innovative performance techniques.

 

She studied music and composition with Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Dieter Kaufmann, Kurt Schwertsik and Alexander Arenkov in Vienna, creating a foundation on the basis of which she continues to construct and explore the limits of sound and music in a language entirely her own. The violin, voice and her own body transform into sound bodies which are at once organic and primal, screaming, lyrical, composed and explosive.

 

As a pioneer of electro-acoustic performance and composition in Austria, Mia Zabelka developed the process she describes as automatic playing, continuously exploring sound and music as physical phenomena, always pushing back the boundaries in radical and provocative performances and compositions that question established notions and given structures.

 

She has given concerts and performances throughout Europe, America and the former USSR. Recipient of numerous prizes and awards, she was a guest of the DAAD's (German Academic Exchange Service's) international artists' programme in Berlin and the Fulbright Commission in New York.

 

Central works include:

 

SOMATEME, an electro-acoustic performance piece for violin, voice and pick-up microphones on the body. The piece was awarded the WDR composition prize (for Aura), the Prix Ars Electronica (for Sandstrahlentrost) and the Luigi Russolo Prize (for Ströme).

 

SPACE BODIES, CHIP RADIO, REALTIME (with Andres Bosshard and Gerfried Stocker, amongst others), PARADOX PARADISE (with Alvin Curran and Pauline Oliveros, amongst others) and the recent project GREITHER RADIO KANTATE (together with Zahra Mani, Bruno Pisek and various other collaborators) are examples of simultaneous performance projects for multiple performers based on spatial separation, spontaneity and sonic bridges. These projects form part of Mia Zabelka’s long-standing relationship and ongoing collaborations with the Austrian broadcasting corporation the ORF and with Ö1 Kunstradio.

 

Current projects include compositions and performances for and with the One.Night.Band, an ensemble Mia Zabelka founded together with Zahra Mani in 2002. The ensemble involves constantly changing formations and combinations, creating itself anew for each performance project. Sometime members include, in addition to Zabelka & Mani, Franz Hautzinger, Manon-Liu Winter, Martin Siewert, Wolfgang Fuchs, Lukas Ligeti, etc.

 

Major works with the One.Night.Band include:

POST PARADISE at the Vienna Konzerthaus, Café Prückl and Ö1 Kunstradio with Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Curran, Max Nagl, Zahra Mani, Potuznik, amongst others.

EMBODIMENT at the Radiokulturhaus Vienna, a work based on the poetry of Friederike Mayröcker, using texts and images of the artist and zoomed body shots as the basis of a multimedia score for the ensemble of a piece in two movements: a trio (Mia Zabelka, Franz Hautzinger, Martin Siewert) and an ensemble piece (Zabelka, Hautzinger, Siewert, Mani, Martin Janicek, Manon Liu-Winter & vocals by Anna Hauf), which was released on CD in 2007.

The project GEHEIMNISSE EINER SEELE is an intermedial performance work based on G.W. Pabst’s eponymous film, in collaboration with the Finnish media and live cinema artist Mia Makela.

 

 

In 2007 Mia Zabelka founded the klang.haus, a centre for sound and interdisciplinary art at her house in southern Styria. The klang.haus is a meeting point for international and local artists and hosts the wein.klang festival four times a year.

Real-time compositions, improvisations and live collaborations with various international artists including John Zorn, David Moss, Peter Kowald, Phil Wachsman, Alvin Curran, Pauline Oliveros, Lukas Ligeti, Franz Hautzinger, Martin Siewert, Phil Minton, Shelley Hirsch, Fernando Grillo, Eliot Sharp, Wolfgang Mitterer, Francis Marie Uitti, Josef Klammer, Joelle Leandre, Fred Frith, Manon Liu-Winter, I-Wolf (Wolfgang Schlögl), DJ Still, Dälek, Gerhard Potuznik, Rupert Huber, Robin Rimbaud and Electric Indigo.

 

Mia Zabelka is currently collaborating in Duos with Franz Hautzinger and Zahra Mani, with the Video Artist Mia Makela and in Trio with Pavel Fait and Johannes Frisch.