Celia Mara - A Biography

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ARTIST INFORMATION CÉLIA MARA Projects:

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Célia Mara Band: Brazilian Bastardsound (5 on stage: based in Vienna/A & Salvador/BR) Genre: Nu’ Brazil, Dub, World, Reggae, Latin-Funk Célia Mara & la Banda di Piazza Caricamento: Global Bastardsound – a Babel’s groove explosion directed by Davide Ferrari (in coop with Echo Art / Festival del Mediterraneo) (15 on stage: based in Genoa / Italy) Genre: Worldmusic, ethno punk performance Célia Mara: Meus Amores With Benjamim Taubkin & Lui Coimbra (3 on stage: based in São Paulo/BR) Genre: Acoustic, Brazilian Jazz, MPB

Globalista: no border media Website link: www.celiamara.net www.globalistas.net Contact: silvia jura santangelo fone: +43-699-100-88-700 mailto: [email protected] skype: globalista 1010 Wien, Fleischmarkt 16/3/42, Austria Facebook.com/silviajura pages: /celiamara

ARTIST BIO Célia Mara is a guitarist and singer-songwriter from Brazil who combines funk, samba, rock, electric-tango, and Nu-bossa into sophisticated, vibrant and socially aware pieces. Her passionate singing has led Healer Selecta, of the United Kingdom’s reason2b, to label her as “the best Brazilian international underground artist.” Mara defines herself as “bastardista”: a mixed, female-made hybrid that violates race, gender and class structures but her sound is that of “nu Brazilian flavor”, presenting a Latinized version of multicultural world music. Mara was born in Pedra Azul, a small town in Minas Gerais, and has grown up in a climate of political oppression and censorship during the military dictatorship. At the age of 16, she started translating her experiences into songs for voice and guitar. The sound of Tropicalia highly influenced Mara’s musical development and she called upon such artists as Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Mercedes Sosa to be her sonic role models. After touring Brazil for the subsequent few years, Mara was invited to perform in a small festival in Switzerland. Her experience touring abroad led her to move to Europe in order to pursue a career as a performer of Brazilian music. In Austria, she discovered the local jazz and ethno scenes, which both helped her music molt again, this time into a Samba-Jazz-Funk fusion. In 1997, she released her debut-album, “Hot Couture do Samba”, which exposed her to various new opportunities at music festivals and on the radio. With her band PotênciaX, a group of Austrian jazz-instrumentalists, she presented her independent style of Samba meets funk and jazz: original Brazilian grooves mixed with sophisticated instrumental interpretations from within the European musical context. In 2000, Celia Mara was selected as the “Best World Music Artist” in the Austrian Concerto Poll. In 2001, she released “Necessário”, a melancholic collection of Brazilian MPB anti-war songs, dedicated to social purposes, supporting an educational project in Rio de Janeiro. She produced her album “Bastardista” between 2004 and 2005, with the help of her keyboarder Geri Schuller and mixer Pogo Michael Kreiner. The record brought her an export award from the Brazilian Ministry of Culture and to the Top 10 of the European World Music Charts, it was ranked various times among the “best of the year, best of the week” selections in different countries. The album is a fascinating mix that provides a trip through samba, tango, afoxé, bossa nova, forro, and reggae. At the root of the music lies a marriage between traditional Brazilian rhythms and European underground instrumental grooves. The lyrics, sung in Portuguese, English, German, Spanish and French, are urban poems that sing the voice of migrations and provide communication without any borders. All the tracks on “Bastardista” are songs dedicated to the crucial questions of being, that is, love, religion, and politics. Their diverse influences come together to establish a cultural individuality within the global community. Célia Mara has currently published her new album entitled “Santa Rebeldia.” Produced between 2007 and 2008, Mara has been working on it between Vienna, Barcelona and Salvador / Bahia. Santa Rebeldia is bastardista’s logical evolution, bastard sound out of the Brazilian Diaspora, an intercontinental journey, ironical, sensual,

rebellious and fresh. Célia Mara disrespectfully surfs between musical styles and rhythms, plays effortlessly with the infinite reservoir of Latino-music, joins easily Retro-Brazil, Tango and traditional Afro-Brazilian grooves, mixes Nova MPB and Samba with Funk, Reggae, Balkan-folk, Glamour Rock and HipHop. Finally, she shakes all together into a Viennese electronic concept. “Brash, confident and assured" headlines the ***review in UK’s Songlines. “…this is the sound of Nu-Brazil by way of Vienna…”

LIVE ON STAGE in Austria/ Brazil / Bulgaria / Croatia/ Czech Rep./ Germany/ Italy/ Latvia/ Luxembourg/ Serbia/ Spain / UK/ Mexico/ Russia/ Tunisia… Célia Mara is a powerful bandleader and engaging front woman, giving her soul to the audience through dancing, grooving, entertaining, and having a wild ride on her acoustic guitar. She never fails to impress with her amazing vocal improvisations, which she quickly switches over to beat boxing and sometimes even ascend to trumpet solos. With help from the band, the “Bastardista” set-list provides, in the words of Gregory Klemm of Element, ”a beautifully uplifting atmosphere.” Additionally, it involves the listeners completely in the Célia Mara world of sounds, in-between a smoothly groovin’ ambience of good mood and hot and spicy phases of global ecstasy. Célia Mara performed during the last years with the bastardista live-project throughout Europe, presenting her eclectic shows on all kind of different festivals and locations - from huge Afro- or Reggae festivals to exclusive Jazz festivals, from real underground clubs to the most prestigious national concert halls. Mara presented her songs on “fightin‘ for a better world”-mega open airs in Berlin, on top of “Trio Eletrico‘s” during carnival in Brazil and even in the famous Vienna Opera House, at legendary Jazzfest Wien... For spontaneous live sessions, Bastard Sound joined as great artists as Joe Zawinul, Olodum, Think of One, Magou & Dakar Transit with Célia Mara. In 2009, two new projects are born: Célia Mara & La Banda di Piazza Caricamento (based in Genoa/Italy) and the acustic trio „meus amores“ with virtuosos Benjamim Taubkin and Lui Coimbra. Some festivals : Jazzfest Wien/A, Africa Festival/Würzburg/D, Jazz á Carthage/Tunis, Zeltival/Karlsruhe/D, Sabor de Samba/Offenburg/D, National palace of Culture/ Sofia/BG, Mujeres en el Mediterraneo/Granada/ES, Interzone Festival/Novi Sad/SER, CSD/ Berlin, Ethnoland/Moscow/RU, Sunsplash & Jazz@ Wiesen/A, Festival del Mediterraneo / Genova/It, Ethnotronica/Moscow/RU, Spançirfest/Cr ecc…

RELEASES • Hot Couture Do Samba, 1998 • Necessario, 2000 • Bastardista, 2005 • Santa Rebeldia, 2008 Text courtesy: Modiba Publishing / USA & globalista: no border media http://modibapub.wordpress.com/celia-mara/