biography
Márta Sebestyén is one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful artists in world music.
Best known for her Oscar-winning contribution to the soundtrack of "The English Patient", Márta has also won a Grammy for her album "Deep Forest". She also appeared on Peter Gabriel`s "Big Blue Ball" album. Márta has played in many prestigious venues and for many important people in her 35 years of performing, including HM Queen Elizabeth II and HM Prince Charles.
"I Can See the Gates of Heaven...." represents a major new shift in Marta`s` career, singing religious and secular songs with folklore parallels from the world. She sings songs personally chosen from the extensive Hungarian folk and religious repertoire, songs that have close personal resonance for her.
The cultural traditions of the Carpathian basin brings you back to Europe's thousand-year old cultural history. During the centuries all the important western influence arrived to this territory and remained in the peoples' memory mixed up with their own habits. In the eastern part of Europe Hungarians and their neighbours preserved a special European tradition, going back to ancient times, which was long forgotten in the western part of the continent. Europe is the cradle of modern times. Its traditions are the roots of our present world.
Marta with her two musicians work started in Italy, as the world premiere of this composition was heard in the church of Redemptore in Venice. Their performance lines up those bits of the European past which were kept and developed from Hungarian folklore.
Márta Sebestyén - voice, flute, tamburine
Balázs Szokolay Dongó - bagpipe, flutes, saxophone
Mátyás Bolya - Moldavian lute, zither
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