Music / Za Górami, Alice Zawadzki, Fred Thomas and Misha Mullov-Abbado. At Tuggeranong Arts Centre, October 6. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA

It is almost impossible to say into what genre Za Górami should be placed, for the concert performed by this trio from London, based on their 2024 album of the same name, veered between traditional folk, chamber music, improvisational jazz, and sheer entertainment.

Vocalist Alice Zawadzki, who sings barefoot, chatted affably to the audience, revealing that the company was travelling with a baby and a small child, asking questions about audience members’ cultural origins and generally injecting a little mischief into her ongoing narrative of songs from mostly European traditions.

Opening with Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla’s song about clandestine love, Suéltate Las Cintas, she went on to show us the full range of her extraordinary voice, usually beginning gently and delicately, building to a full-bodied crescendo and then quietening down to silence by the end of each song.

Dominating the repertoire were songs from the Judeo-Spanish Ladino tradition which touched on unique, often amusing human experiences. In one, the tender mother singing a lullaby turns on the husband when he arrives home late. In another, a girl is keen to meet her lover but not if she gets her feet wet and in yet another, a young girl points out her exceptionally tall boyfriend.

The title song Za Górami, meaning ‘behind the mountain’, a typical Polish way of beginning a story, we heard, told the haunting story of a girl dancing herself into old age.

There were songs in Spanish from Mexico and Venezuela, a Renaissance French reflection on very young love, a southern Italian Tarantella with a touch of menace, and a subtle rendition of the famous song, The Leaving of Liverpool, or in this case, Limerick.

While Zawadzki took centre stage and occasionally picked up her fiddle, she did not dominate, for her two associate artists, pianist-drummer Fred Thomas and bassist Misha Mullov-Abbado, proved to be remarkable performers who used their instruments to the fullest effect, with Thomas often reaching inside the piano to create additional percussive sounds.

A highlight was the performance of a setting by Thomas of James Joyce’s poem, Gentle Lady. Here the piano and bass spoke to each other in a virtuoso jazz-style breakout.

The unusual evening wound up with Zawadzki talking the audience into imitating horse sounds while the trio performed a Sardinian number about greedy, grasping land-barons.

Tonight, Wednesday night, Zawadzki and Thomas will perform a concert of Schubert lieder at The Street Theatre. You can bet it will be nothing like Za Górami.

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