„Live in concert Mia Zabelka is an electrifying performer, as a result of which she has become the focus of intense audience interest.“ John Eyles/ All about Jazz (UK)
Austrian violinist, vocalist and composer Mia Zabelka is at the forefront of international electro-acoustic performance art. She developed her unique musical language in a process she calls “automatic playing”, where the music grows out of her physical movement and finds its expression in her electric violin with electronic devices, alien objects, vocals, and/or acoustic violin. Using this set up she is given the opportunity to expand the sound range so extensively that the violin itself becomes an interface, an electronic sound generator and thus a sound machine. Mia Zabelka is continuously exploring sound and music as physical phenomena, always pushing back the boundaries in her experimental performances and compositions that question established notions, improving the available techniques and given structures. The violin and her own voice and body are transformed in the process into sound bodies which are at once organic and primal, screaming, lyrical, composed and explosive.
Her previous collaborators include Elliott Sharp, Dälek, Phill Niblock, Pauline Oliveros, Robin Rimbaud, Electric Indigo, John Russell, Maggie Nicols and Lydia Lunch.
She has given concerts and performances at many Festivals throughout Europe, America and Asia, CTM/ Berlin, Rewire/ Den Haag, Elevate/ Graz, Café Oto/ London, Iklektic/ London, musikprotokoll/ Steirischer Herbst/ Graz, Forte Festival/ Portugal, Störung Festival/Barcelona, Donaufestival/Krems, MADE Festival/Umea, Wien Modern Festival/Vienna, Salzburger Festspiele/ Salzburg, All Frontiers Festival/Gradisca d’Isonzo, CoC Art Festival/Torun, Long Arms Festival/Moscow, Discovery Festival/London, Sonic Circuits Festival/Washington DC, Issue Project Room/New York, Spektrum/ Berlin, Nuit d’Hiver Festival/Marseille, Strefa Monotype/Warsaw, Audio Art Festival/ Pula, AAVE Festival/Helsinki, Avantgarde Festival/Schiphorst, Henie Onstad Museum/Oslo, Festival Musique Actuelle/Victoriaville, Meakusma Festival/ Belgium, Flussi Festival/ Italy, Incubate Festival/ the Netherlands, among others.
Recently Mia Zabelka was awarded The Akademia Music Award 2018 for her composition “For Pauline Oliveros”, commissioned by Steirischer Herbst/ Musikprotokoll and Austrian Cultural Forum New York and the Austrian Art Prize 2021 in the category „Music“ by the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport.
Mia Zabelka is currently the artistic director of Phonofemme Festival Vienna and Klanghaus Sankt Johann in the region of South Styria.
Mia Zabelka is very interested in the interdisciplinarity between music and science. The term “scientific music” best applies to her work. It is music beyond melodies, harmonies and rhythm. Scientific music is concerned with making automatic processes audible. It is noise, movement, automation, division, symbiosis, dissonance and resonance. An endless adventure of sound discovery!
soundcloud.com/miazabelkamusic