Mia Zabelka (violin, voice) is a sound artist, composer as well as an improviser from Vienna, with czech, jewish and french familiar background. After completing her training with a strong classical emphasis, she continued to construct and explore the limits of sound and music in a language entirely her own, based on the de- and reconstruction of the violin’s sonic possibilities, expanding the range of the instrument using live electronic devices, preparing it through the insertion of alien objects between or on the strings and innovative performance techniques.

Mia Zabelka describes this process as AUTOMATIC PLAYING, continuously exploring sound and music as physical phenomena, always pushing back the boundaries in experimental performances and compositions that question established notions, improving the available techniques and given structures. The violin and her own voice and body are transformed in the process into sound bodies which are at once organic and primal, screaming, lyrical, composed and explosive.

She has collaborated with a string of exciting artists from around the world, such as Robin Rimbaud, Pauline Oliveros, Elliott Sharp, Dälek, Lydia Lunch, Alexei Borisov , Phill Niblock, John Zorn, John Russell, Maggie Nicols and Philippe Petit.

She has given concerts and performances at many Festivals throughout Europe, America and Asia. Numerous CD, vinyl and video releases. Recipient of highly regarded prizes (3-time winner oft the Prix Ars Electronica) and awards, she was a guest of the DAAD’s (German Academic Exchange Service’s) international artists’ programme in Berlin and the Fulbright Commission in New York.

Mia Zabelka is currently the artistic director of Phonofemme Festival Vienna and Klanghaus Untergreith in the region of South Styria.