Vardos have been serenading audiences around the world for more than a decade.
Vardos have toured to every state in Australia; festivals include Four Winds, National, Port Fairy, Victor Harbour, Illawarra, Cygnet, Cobargo and Fairbridge Folk Festivals, the Bellingen Global Carnival, the Queenscliff Music Festival, the National Multicultural Festival in Canberra, the Alice Desert Festival and the Melbourne Festival where they launched the CD "Entertaining Countess Dracula" to a sell-out crowd at the Famous Spiegeltent. They even played at the chill out zone "The Village" at the Falls Festival over the new year in Marion Bay, Tasmania 2007 and 2009 and Lorne, Victoria, 2008.
So far in 2010 they have supported "Besh o Drom" (Hungary) at the Corner Hotel, "Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club" at Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne and the "Gipsy Kings" at the Palais, St Kilda.
Television appearances in Australia include cameos on "Spicks and Specks", ABC TV 2009, "The Footy Show", Channel 9 2007, and Seachange (Series 3) ABC TV . 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, have showcased in the United States, 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
