![[coy cutie]](marta.jpg)
![[dramatic expectant]](marta2.jpg)
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NEW: Oct 8 in Philly; April date in Seattle
ancestral village (incl grandmother) near the Austrian border
c1961: born in Budapest, Hungary (mother ethnomusicologist studied under Bartok's friend Zoltan Kodaly; brother and sister not interested in folk music)
c1963: learned to sing before she could talk
c1970: performed in concerts, on television and on records
"When I was 12 years old, I found also the real music on disks from the file of the Academy of the Arts of Hungary. I remember still quite exactly this instant: I was quite shocked by the voice of a Moldavian (Moravian?) singer." [Babelfished from German]
c1973: prize for folk singing from Zoltan Kodaly
1975: Sebo & Halmos group, singing at Budapest "dance houses"
1980: joined Muszikas (formed 1973)
1981? joined Vujicsics
1984: starred in folk musical based on Hungary's legendary King Stephen
1984: Hungary's Female Singer Of The Year
1980s: toured Britain, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, Australasia
1980s: recorded a rock opera?
1988: legendary Druga godba concert
1991: Liszt Award
c1992: first son (followed by another?)
1990s: toured Japan, USA, Europe
1996: US dates
1997: Prairie Home Companion Oct 25 [note], other dates
1998: US dates
ongoing: repeated pilgrimages to Transylvania
"It's important for a singer to hold the hands of the old ladies, look into their eyes and live with them in their houses," she said."People sometimes like to use my voice in pop music," Sebestyen said, with a resigned shrug. "It is never my idea. It can be useful for other people, and for me as well. But when I am able to do what I want to do, to say what I want to say, it is always through folk music. Ordinary people who listen to music on the radio all day long do not know that it is all a lie. It is all noise, the noise of money. I pity people who have grown up never having heard honest music. Mixing music with business is not for me." [source]
official homepage incl tourdates, Amazon, interview, bio, bio, info w/pic, short bio, Rykodisc, Tunes.com
Muzsikas (mu-zi-kosh): Amazon page; Rykodisc page
Daniel Hamar (leader, geophysicist): hammer dulcimer, bass, hit-garden (cross between cello and drum)
Mihaly Sipos: fiddle
Laszlo Porteleki: fiddle
Peter Eri: viola
Zoltan Farkas and Ildiko Toth: dancers
Not music students, they included a mathematician, a teacher and an ethnologist. They played for parties, dances, weddings. Popular at first within a circle of maybe 50 students and intellectuals, they were surprised when their audience kept growing.
Vujicsics
(voy-chich), an ensemble that focuses on the traditions of Southern Hungary's Croats and Serbs [info], ditto, LP info
Amazon says 1996 for the CD, below
This is my favorite.
1986?
1987?
1988?
collects songs from three Hungarian-only traditional albums recorded with Karoly Cserepes (Love, Christmas and Emigration).
lush electronic backing
tracks without mentioning MartaS
quote from UK Times review, review, review w/o MS?, blurb w/o MS?
(I'm not sure MS is really on this at all)
only two of the 14 melodies come from Hungary. Instead Sebestyen has drawn from her international travels to select songs with intriguing similarities to the Hungarian tradition she grew up with. In one medley, the Hungarian love song, "If I Were a Rose," is connected to tunes from three minority-ethnic groups in Russia. In another, "Leaving Derry Quay," an Irish immigration ballad learned from Delores Keane, segues into "Eleni," a Greek song with a similar homesick theme. Other songs come from Bulgaria, Bosnia and India.
review, review, review, review in Italian, short review
traditional Hungarian song heard under the opening credits, "En Csak Azt Csodalom (Lullaby for Catherine)" [RealAudio clip]
"(Director) Anthony Minghella had listened to our last three or four records and immediately fell in love with the songs. He never contacted me. At one of the gigs in Berkeley, he came backstage and introduced himself."
Minghella had already put the film together using Sebestyen's music. "He showed me part of his film, and I agreed with him," she said.
Amazon (poor samples); Tunes.com (better)
"Marta's Song" also appeared on Robert Altman's "Pret-a-Porter" soundtrack at the beginning of 1995
Similarly, the guys in Deep Forest - Eric Mouquet and Michel Sanchez - became enamored of her voice when searching for a centerpiece to their follow-up to their hit debut. Whereas that album ("Deep Forest") was built around the vocals of African pygmies, the new one would be centered around a different culture.
"They were listening to records from all over the world, they found my songs of traditional music, and they discovered they liked my singing," she said. "Eric and Michel each phoned each other and said they'd found something wonderful, and then they realized they each had been listening to the same songs. They made a demo tape, sent it to me and asked me what I thought.
"It was really shocking to me and strange to my ears. But I tried to forget about being a folk singer and listened to it the way a young teen-age guy would listen. There are so many ways to reach an audience, so I let them use it and we became friends."
Amazon; Rykodisc; samples, two full songs?
illustrates how Hungarian folk music affected and was affected by Bartok.
review (bilingual)
featuring Marta Sebestyen and the Okros Ensemble, recorded on location. CD RCD937 $19.00
Global Divas CD; Donal Lunny CD and Amazon w/sample
Concert announcement w/pix; ditto in Italian
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