Vardos have been playing for more than a decade around Australia and internationally.
Festivals in Australia include Four Winds, National, Port Fairy, Victor Harbour, Illawarra and Fairbridge Folk Festivals, the Bellingen Global Carnival, the Queenscliff Music festival, the National Multicultural Festival in Canberra and the Melbourne Festival where they launched their second CD to a sell-out crowd at the Famous Spiegeltent. They have toured to regional Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and played at the Romanian Embassy in Canberra and the re-opening of the National Gallery of Victoria. They evenr played at the chill out zone "The Village" at the Falls Festival over the new year in Marion Bay, Tasmania.
Vardos appeared on Seachange (Series 3) on ABC television and on the Best of Seachange CD. They also feature in Ruth Cullen's documentary on artist Vali Myers, Painted Lady. (see Films)
Vardos have toured internationally to New Zealand, Noumea in New Caledonia, Geneva in Switzerland and around Hungary, and had successful shows at the Famous Spiegeltent in the Edinburgh Fringe and the Nokia /Orange Spiegeltent in the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2003. Vardos were nominated for the 2003 BBC Radio3 World Music Awards (Audience Award) and returned to Edinburgh in 2004 where they received a 4 star review!(see Reviews )
"Violinist Alana Hunt is the live wire in chief, encouraging the audience to clap along - but in and at the right time please - by appearing menacingly at their tables, and regaling them with unlikely tales of drunken clocks, broken curfews and short-sighted shepherds" (Rob Adams, Edinburgh 2004)
Alana formed the band in 1993 in Perth, where Vardos worked professionally for five years, appearing in many festivals including the Fremantle Festival and the Festival of Perth; during this time Alana also made two trips to Hungary to study Hungarian folk music with Beata Salamon (Meta folk music band) and gypsy music with Miklos Konya. Sofia and Alana have made four trips to Eastern Europe together since 1999. (see Travels in Hungary and Romania)Photos: Rik Pilskalns
Sofia Chapman trained as a classical pianist until discovering and running away with the piano accordion in 1993. It has been said that she "could play Shakespeare's complete works with her eyebrows" (Herald, Edinburgh 2004).
Sofia played with Xenos Macedonian Gypsy Band for four years in Australia, Britain and Portugal, and has been a guest musician on CD's of Zulya Kamalova and Barb Dwyer.Indra Buraczewska, since graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in classical violin has played in numerous bands in an amazing array of guises. She's been a saxophonoist in soul/blues bands, a fiddle player in Irish bands, an upright jazz bass player and has toured internationally.
Vardos was Indra's inspiration to explore the world of Eastern European music on double bass.Photo: Rik Pilskalns
