A unique ensemble presenting world music a cappella - the members are different but still form a unit – that's AQUABELLA.
Since the group from Berlin has been founded they acquired a unique repertoire of traditional vocal music from all over the world – in more than twenty different languages. There first was curiosity about Bulgarian women´s choirs which then changed into a search for songs and sounds from all over the globe. Ever since, the singers of Aquabella have steadily studied new vocal techniques such as overtone singing or yodelling. The ability to change the quality of their voices and the extraordinary vocal range each member possesses makes Aquabella a special ensemble: They sing, play and dance tunes and stories about people who could be living right around the corner as well as at the end of the world. Especially on stage they show a lot of different facets: proud, sensual, elegant and absorbed behaviour on the one hand and wild, high spirited movements on the other. AQUABELLA mesmerize their audience so that soon eveybody will casted under their spell. They're all at once – river, rain, lake and waterfall!
AQUABELLA are:
Bettina Stäbert
Heleen Joor
Bérangère Palix
Claudia Karduck
Anja Herrmann
Two different programs
“Sonho meu – My Dream”
Dreams of happiness, dreams that get lost, dreams that come true – with hypnotizing passion AQUABELLA takes you to a world where everything seems possible.
Melodies of nearly every continent, always sung in their original languages, are embedded in the unique AQUABELLA sound.
The virtuoso vocalists powerfully bring a Bulgarian women´s choir to life, chant a meditative Lord’s Prayer in Kiswahili and expand their repertoire with catchy World Music tunes like “Aisha” and “Chan Chan”.
They draw from the enormous range of pitch, mutability and wealth of tonal colour each of their voices has to offer. But not only that, their stage programme leaves the audience with visual and audible surprise. Employing not only the arts of singing but also dancing and acting they keep the public entertained until the very end of the show.
The use of percussion such as the udu and the cajon directly carries the audience into the respective cultures whose rhythms seep into the very depths of their souls.
They convey great dreams of mankind by reporting, proclaiming whispering and singing their message - fulfilling their own personal dream of an intercultural journey, solely borne by their voices.
In overflowing concert halls, the women of AQUABELLA capture their audience with absolute mastery and sweeping passion. They are stylistically confident, refreshingly natural and elegant. AQUABELLA conjure up dream worlds and spellbind the public, which “wants to run home, pack its suitcases and set off in search of this music’s origins”.
The recipients of the 1999 Folkförderpreis (annual German folk music award), AQUABELLA tour Germany, Austria, Belgium and Switzerland with two concert programmes (“Sonho meu” and the winter programme “Kykellia”), performing about fifty times a year.
Their concerts are moderated in German, French or English as requested.
Press:
“They are so perfect, you can hardly believe that it’s all really live. No wonder the public got one attack of goose bumps after another.” (Suhler Zeitung)
“With temperament, great radiant power, wit and apparently inexhaustible inventiveness” (Sächsische Zeitung)
“… if there was a prize for the most variegated World Music, Aquabella would win it … choice percussion instruments … beautifully narrative elements…” (Koblenz)
"Kykellia ... ... or the story of Christmas"
For at least 10,000 years humankind has celebrated and feared the winter solstice. In almost every culture on Earth whose ancient lore told of sun standing still this period has very great, and indeed magical significance. The origin of the festival is the primeval, human fear of increasing darkness and the recurrent anxiety as to whether nature would ever regain its fruitfulness. And so, the turn of the year also became a time of oaths and customs designed to appease the gods and drive out evil spirits.
One of the oldest winter rituals is the Egyptian festival of Kikellia, the festival that gave this extraordinary CD its title. On 25th December the ancient Egyptians celebrated the birth of the god of light, Horus, who was born of Isis in the darkness in order to awaken the murdered god of fertility, Osiris. The image of the mother god Isis with the young Horus on her lap became a prototype for depictions of Mary and the infant Jesus. At the time of Jesus.. birth Kikellia was celebrated not just in Egypt, but throughout the Mediterranean and Near East. Like the ..raw nights.. of the Germanic tribes, it lasted 12 days, ending on 6th January, the day of the first sowing. From pagan Rome it spread out across all of Europe. The Christians subsequently adopted the tradition and ever since have celebrated the birth of the Saviour at this time.
Discography
Aquabella (1999) UR34009 / Aquabella Nani Dschann (2002) JARO 4242-2 / Aquabella Kykellia (2004) JARO 4262-2 / Aquabella
