Monsieur Camembert is a five-piece Gypsy fusion band formed in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, Australia in 1997. They have won three

ARIA Music Awards The Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards (commonly known informally as ARIA Music Awards, ARIA Awards, or simply the ARIAs) is an annual series of awards nights celebrating the Australian music industry, put on by the Austr ...

for Best World Music Album in

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

for '' Live on Stage'' (released in 2001), in

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

for '' Absynthe'' and in

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

for ''

Monsieur Camembert Monsieur Camembert is a five-piece Gypsy fusion band formed in Sydney, Australia in 1997. They have won three ARIA Music Awards for Best World Music Album in ARIA Music Awards of 2002, 2002 for ''Live on Stage (Monsieur Camembert album), Live on ...

''. The linguistic repertoire of Monsieur Camembert's music includes

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

and

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

History

Monsieur Camembert formed as a five-piece Gypsy fusion band in

, Australia in 1997. Their first album, was the

live Live may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Live!'' (2007 film), 2007 American film * ''Live'' (2014 film), a 2014 Japanese film *'' ''Live'' (Apocalyptica DVD) Music *Live (band), American alternative rock band * List of albums ...

release '' The Gypsy Hot Club Presents Monsieur Camembert'', which featured Svetlana Bunic on

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

, Julian Curwin on

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...

, Yaron Hallis on

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

and

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., drum kit, bass guitar ...

Michael Lira Michael Lira (born 19 February 1975) is an Australian film score composer and band leader. He is a founding member of experimental bands Vicious Hairy Mary, Darth Vegas and gypsy swing ensemble Monsieur Camembert. Soundtrack credits include ...

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

and Daniel Weltlinger on

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

and was recorded at The Gypsy Hot Club. Released in 1999, it is also titled, ''Live @ The Basement'' and demonstrated their styles including

Gypsy swing Gypsy jazz (also known as gypsy swing, jazz manouche or hot club-style jazz) is a style of small-group jazz originating from the Romani people, Romani guitarist Django Reinhardt, Jean "Django" Reinhardt (1910–53), in conjunction with the Fre ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, Hungarian-Russian

gypsy The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...

klezmer Klezmer ( yi, קלעזמער or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for l ...

tango Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries as the result of a combina ...

and original songs. Their second album was also a live performance, '' Live on Stage'' which was released on 11 September 2001. Performing on the album were Mark Atkins on

didgeridoo The didgeridoo (; also spelt didjeridu, among other variants) is a wind instrument, played with vibrating lips to produce a continuous drone while using a special breathing technique called circular breathing. The didgeridoo was developed by ...

, Eddie Bronson on

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

, Bunic, Curwin, Shenton Gregory on violin, Hallis and Mark Szeto on bass. Note: n-lineversion was expanded from the 2002 edition. They have won three

for Best World Music Album (

). The linguistic repertoire of Monsieur Camembert's music includes

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnicities * Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia ** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule * Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...

and

Band members

As of 2009: * Yaron Hallis (Lead Vocals/Rhythm Guitar) * Matt Ottignon/Edouard Bronson (Saxes/Clarinet/Flute) * Marcello Maio (Accordion/Piano) * Julian Curwin (Lead Guitar) * Mark Harris (Double Bass/Vocals) Guest artists including: * Shenzo Gregorio (Violin) * Vladimir Khusid (Trumpet/Flugelhorn) * Anatoli Torjinski (5 String Cello/Balalaika) * Daniel Weltlinger (Violin) * Svetlana Bunic (Accordion) * Jim Pennell (Lead Guitar) * Stuart Vandegraaf (Saxes/Clarinet/Flute)

Discography

Albums

Awards and nominations

ARIA Music Awards

The

is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of

Australian music The music of Australia has an extensive history made of music societies. Indigenous Australian music forms a significant part of the unique heritage of a 40,000- to 60,000-year history which produced the iconic didgeridoo. Contemporary fusions of ...

. They commenced in 1987. ! , - ,

, ''Live on Stage'' ,

ARIA Award for Best World Music Album The ARIA Music Awards, ARIA Music Award for Best World Music Album, is an award presented within the Fine Arts Awards at the annual ARIA Music Awards. It was inaugurated in ARIA Music Awards of 1995, 1995 as Best Folk/World/Traditional Release. ...

, , rowspan="3", ARIA Award previous winners. , - ,

, ''Absynthe'' , Best World Music Album , , - ,

, ''Monsieur Camembert'' , Best World Music Album , , - ,

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

, ''Famous Blue Cheese'' , Best Original Soundtrack, Cast or Show Album , , ARIA Award previous winners. , -

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control ARIA Award winners Australian jazz ensembles