The GORGEOUS VOICES FESTIVAL
Celebrating Song
Fri 16 - Sun 18 October 2009

Gorgeous Festival Matrons

KELLY AUTY

Why I am a matron of the Bendigo GORGEOUS VOICES FESTIVAL.

I am a woman driven by music, the energy of music. I live it everyday. Music pervades the culture and spirit of people...life could not be full without it. Songs tell of love, pain, injustice, history, herstory and the mysteries of life. Through song we celebrate our heritage and perform rites of passage, singing our dead into the here-after, welcoming our newborn, falling in love.

Raising up the voice is as old as the hills and I love it. Since I can remember I have sung. I am intrigued by most styles. The task of the singer is to bring the song to life and to achieve this the performer must write and sing material which rings true, laying bare some part of the soul.

Teaching singing is rewarding. The healing and balancing power of vocal exercises and techniques helps to develop improved confidence and general relaxation. Working with voices creating melody and harmony is a great experience allowing everyone to discover their voice and dance on the inside.

Some people think that "Those who can perform do and those who can't, teach." As a performer and tutor I say "Hand on your knowledge and watch your students blossom."

So get tuned in and switched on. Celebrate with a community of like-minded folks. Raise up your voice and immerse yourself in good vibrations. Go to the Bendigo Gorgeous Voices festival for more fun than you can 'poke a baton at'.

Biography

Kelly Auty's experience spans Church Choir, classical voice training and the Opera, Musical Theatre, Rock, RandB, Blues, Gospel performances at Festivals including Apollo Bay, Goulburn,Woodford, Brunswick and Broadford. Support shows for The Divynls, Janis Ian, Jose Feliciano, Manhattan Transfer and the Drifters.

Presently Kelly tutors singers and performs the Wild Women show with her band. The repertoire is drawn from women performers from 1920 to 1970. Stories, songs and fashions of such greats as Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf, Josephine Baker, Eartha Kitt, Etta James, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin.

Kelly has produced 3 original CDs...Blue Angel, KARD and Angel on his shoulder. More recently she has recorded two CDs of favorite gospel, blues and soul songs drawn from the Wild Women repertoire.

http://www.kellyauty.listen.to/

Management. Andrew Malouf e-mail andrew@gamerec.com. Phone 03 52583966 or 0407517122

KAVISHA MAZZELLA

Singing in English and Italian, Kavisha sings traditional and original, contemporary music that is inspired by her rich Asian, Mediterranean & Celtic heritages. The daughter of an Irish-scots/ Burmese mother and an Italian father, Kavisha was born in London, England. Her family migrated to Western Australia in the sixties, where the desert meets the sea. There, this large, argumentative musical family ran a small café in a bowling alley in the city of Perth.

Her maternal grandmother played banjo and her uncle on her Dad's side was a Neapolitan Tenor. She learnt how to sing and play the guitar from her mother. Practicing guitar in her bedroom, her early influences include Sandy Denny, Joni Mitchell, & Leonard Cohen .She sang in church choir with her brothers and Grandmother.

Meanwhile, her father taught her to love Art. Taking afternoons off from work, he would take her to visit Art exhibitions of local Artists. After leaving school, she studied Art at Claremont Art School, majoring in painting. She started playing music in coffee houses and winebars to pay for her paints.

But it wasn't until she heard the folk music of "NUOVA COMPAGNIA DI CANTO POPOLARE" from Naples that she felt a deep connection to her heritage. Then she started to sing traditional Italian Folk , learning these songs from her father and grandmother, old records and cassettes. Then one day she was invited to play for a group of elderly Italian women in a derelict wooden church hall in Fremantle. They spent the morning singing and playing together.

They became her new teachers, singing songs of the old country that had all but died out in Italy but had lived on in their memories. From their friendship, she realized the power of the stories of their lives and it was then she became an embryonic song writer, chronicling their lives in an Album called "Joys Of The Women" (1993).

Whether working solo or with others, Kavisha has carved a strong reputation as a songmaker, composer and theatre worker. Playing guitar, mandolin or piano accordion, it is her hauntingly beautiful voice, capable of power and nuance, humour and spontaneity on stage that makes no two shows alike. Singing in English and Italian, Kavisha's songs take you on a joyful, raw, poetic, emotional journey. She is currently based in Melbourne, Australia.

For further information visit http://members.optusnet.com.au/rustystewart/kav/