Following a wildly successful Australian tour last year, the international acoustic supergroup Mozaik makes its US debut this March and April. The tour is long-cherished dream of Irish music legend and fusion pioneer Andy Irvine, said the concept for this band took form two years ago; an international supergroup of musicians from all over the world, each of whom he considered the best in his own tradition. Mozaik moves effortlessly from Celtic to Old Timey to Eastern European music, with lavish instrumental arrangements complementing Andy and Bruce's plaintive vocals. Melodies set to complex East European rhythms are buoyed by the irrepressible lift of the best Irish music. American field hollers sit alongside protest songs and slow airs.Singer and bouzouki, guitar and mandolin player Irvine has been hailed as "a tradition in himself." Musician, singer and songwriter, Andy has maintained both personal integrity and highly individual performing skills throughout his 40-year career. From Sweeney's Men in the mid sixties to the enormous success of Planxty in the 70s, to THE Irish super group, Patrick Street, in the 80s, Andy has been a world music pioneer and icon for traditional music and musicians. Irvine occupies a unique place in the musical world, plying his trade as archetypal troubadour, with a solo show and traveling lifestyle that reflects his lifelong influence, Woody Guthrie. Few others can equal his repertoire, Irish traditional songs, dexterous Balkan dance tunes, and a compelling canon of his own material that defies description.Ireland's Donal Lunny has been at the cutting edge of the evolution of Irish music for almost thirty years and is generally regarded as having been central to its renaissance. He also designed the first custom-built bouzouki - the prototype of what is now known as the "Irish bouzouki". From the late 1960's, when he formed Emmet Spiceland, the first group to break into the pop charts with Irish music, through the seventies and eighties as a member of the influential band Planxty, the high-energy Bothy Band, and the trad-rock band Moving Hearts, Donal has revolutionised attitudes to traditional music.The Bulgarian instruments Nikola Parov plays include the kaval (end-blown wooden flute), the duduk, (whistle), gaida (bagpipe) and gadulka (a bowed instrument similar to the violin). Parov, who is half-Bulgarian, met Irvine at a festival in Hungary about 20 years ago, when he was playing with his band, Zsaratnok. He joined Riverdance because it was a challenge - to master the discipline of playing notated music - but, after six years, missed the opportunity "to make music much more freely, to improvise". Mozaik, is "the opposite to Riverdance, playing someone else's music. Here we play our music, and make lots of experiments with our music," Parov says. Parov played on Irvine's 1992 recording of Bulgarian and Macedonian music, East Wind, while Dutchman and multi-instrumentalist Rens Van Der Zalm, joined an East Wind Trio that toured America with Irvine and Parov.Rens van der Zalm is a musician of multiple talents: he is not only a skilled guitarist, but is equally accomplished on the violin, mandolin, keyboards, accordion and whistle. Rens' instrumental skills are combined with an ability to apply his expertise to a wide variety of musical styles. Born in Rotterdam, Holland, Rens was classically trained in violin and piano from an early age and later studied guitar at the Rotterdam Conservatory of Music. His professional career was forged in the folk clubs of Holland, Belgium and the UK. As a member of the acclaimed Dutch folk bands Fungus and Wolverei, Rens toured throughout Europe. With his versatility of musicianship, Rens has played as a guest artist with many bands, covering a wide range of repertoire from folk, to jazz to classical.Irvine "discovered" the fifth member of the band, American fiddler Bruce Molsky, at a party. What captivated Irvine was that Molsky was an exponent of "old-timey music" - the American adaption of the music brought by British, Irish and Scandinavian migrants in the late-19th century. Bruce hardly needs an introduction here. Folklore Society members know and love Bruce's fiddling, picking and singing with Big Hoedown and Hesperus, and have followed his brilliant solo career with pride. Welcome Bruce back from Nashville with this extraordinary band.
