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Ada Fijal - actress and singer. Madam Retro.
Fascinated by the charm and chic of 20’s and 30’s, the polish actress und singer Ada Fijal performs retro-pop and hits from this decades in new club arrangements.
Co-authored awarded "Klub Retro" project (Golden Leaf Award on Retro Festival 2007).
With an effort to reactivated Mieczyslaw Fogg's Label, Ada Fijal released the single "Klub Retro" - www.klubretro.pl.
She also worked together with the Dj´s Adamus, Seb Skalski and Matt Kowalsky.
Ada Fijal known to a wider audience with roles in different television series like: "Samo Zycie", "Klan", "Barwy szczescia", "Czas honoru", "39 i pol", "Teraz albo nigdy" and "M jak milosc". She performed in many theatrical productions on the stages all over Krakow.
Influenced by the cultural flavour of her hometown Krakow, Ada Fijal starts early in her childhood dancing in the ensemble "Male Slowianki" (dancing & singing), which performed at this time all over Europe.
As she always has many interests like in music, singing, acting and also biology, she decided to study medicine after high-school.
However, during her studies she realized that her artistic soul need some 'food', so she made it to the 'Theatre School of Ludwik Solski' in Krakow.
Besides her training at the theatre, Ada Fijal continued the medical school and graduated at the faculty of dentistry in 2000.
In 2002 she finished the theatre school with a very good result and received her 'Master Degree Of Art'.
Since that time, she'd played in many theatre-productions like: "Rock kobiet", "Najwiecej samobojstw zdarza sie w niedziele", "Improwizacje" and also in movie and TV productions: "Idealny facet dla mojej dziewczyny", "Barwy szczecia", "Klan" and as a host in "TV Lato" and "Coctail TiVi".
Her diploma project at the theatre school was preparing and performing the recital of Edith Piaf's "Proby z Piaf".
But she's still in love with her biggest passion: music.
In 2004 Ada Fijal formed with her friend, the singer Kasia Weredynska a band called "Lechee" and also produced the musical "No Bar".
With her common passion for the 20’s and 30’s there's another project comes up: "Klub Retro", a journey to old Polish music standards of past decades.
This was a very special evening event with a master of ceremonies, dressed in white smoking, who hijacked the audience into the world of old movies, cabarets, clubs, the time of beautiful women, love, sex and betrayal. In between of narrating stories, Ada and Kasia were performing songs in accompaniment of a quartet, contains piano, double bass, trumpet and turntables in modern club-sounds.
The tunes for “Klub Retro” were arranged by Pawel Gawlik.
Ada Fijal's latest project, a duet with the well-known 'Electrotainer' Louie Austen, is called 'Take Your Time' and will be digitally released in December 2009.
Louie Austen has been around for longer than you may realise. Now in his early 60s, Louie has leaped from thriving as an enigmatic night club crooner to one of the most exhilarating performers dance music currently has to offer.
„Art must be a matter of life and death – otherwise it’s not art“ is Louie´s sincere conviction. Just like "I´ll never retire, I´ll probably die on stage but I don´t give a fuck!" One thing the Viennese Electro-crooner doesn’t go for is doing things by half. Whatever he does is done with his fullest commitment – and often regardless of the consequences. Admittedly, this reckless attitude has gotten him into serious trouble time and again. And yet it also made him what he is today: a man who finds himself an upcoming and sought-after artist whose career hasn’t yet reached its climax.
There’s a hell of a lot going on in the life of Louie: Early 2007 he even founded his own label LA Music – Louie Austen Music – which has given birth to three EP releases thus far; the "Summer Love” record, the "(Dreams Are My) Reality" Richard Sanderson cover feat. Senor Coconut & His Orchestra and in the summer of 2008 a coop with Commercial Breakup from Berlin, former keys-man of Blumfeld as on the “Too Good To Last EP”. With the cool cats of Senor Coconut Louie´s been touring on their “Around The World” tour and was featured on their album by the same name.
Louie´s not only involved in music – at the Viennese "Burgtheater" he had a part in an adaption of Johann Nestroy's play "Höllenangst" which is taken back into programme this summer as it´s been so popular with people. Also he´s got his fingers in the film bizness - "The Counterfeiters / Die Fälscher" of Stefan Ruzowitzky got an OSCAR for best foreign movie and includes a cameo of Louie as a casino gambler. Louie also appeared as Karl in the Austrian short movie „Lounge“, an hommage to the film noir movies of the 1940s directed by Armin Bointner of Progressive Pictures.
Musicwise this year Louie´s to released the “My Amy EP”, an homage to Amy Winehouse on Etage Noir in spring, the label of electronic artist Parov Stelar who´s to be named also for productions credits here. Of course master Austen has many aces of spades up his sleeves; he´s also working on several coops and on another studio album. On top of this all Mr. Austen is of course regularly swooning and crooning in clubs worldwide & has a weekly residence at the Cascade Bar of the Marriott hotel in Vienna by the name of “Louie´s Saturday” with various programmes, including Best of Ratpack songs.
But how did it all get started? Louie´s still astonished about the formidable status he´s achived, in a scene whose very existence he had not even been aware of ten years ago.
Time for a flashback: In 1999, the bustling Viennese Electro scene gives birth to a new and surprising idea. A Viennese electronic producer contrasts his experimental electronic tracks with Louie Austen’s velvety voice. He had run into the classic jazz crooner in a studio and immediately proposed a collaboration.
Austen, then 53 years old, had already led an eventful life in various parts of the world and could look back on an equally eventful performing career. After immigrating to South Africa and Australia he had performed in clubs and on stages in New York, Pittsburgh and Las Vegas during the 70s. After his return to Vienna, the crooner entertained the guests at the Klimt-Bar of the Vienna Hilton before he took over the entire entertainment for the Marriott Hotel. A safe job and well paid, too. Additionally, Austen wrote and produced shows like “Viva Las Vegas“ or “American Superstars“, played parts in several movies and toured both Europe and the USA with show programmes.
Yet Austen is intrigued by the electronic beats and sounds of the young generation. When the first album “Consequences“ (1999) is well received in the club scene and the first concerts
turn out promising, Louie makes a courageous decision. “I decided there and then to resign from all other jobs and to completely dedicate myself to this new project for a period of two years“, he recalls. “I reflected that, if I’d find myself in the street after those two years, I’d have to go back to my old jobs. But I wanted to try out this new direction under all circumstances – I simply had to.“
It was a decision that was true to the nature of a man who sees himself as always searching and filled with a childlike curiosity. Who is always ready to accept new challenges and gladly accepts the fact that not all of them can pay off. But Austen simply abhors routines and artistic stagnation. “To try something new every single day – that’s what keeps me alert and on the ball, young and active.“
Naturally Austen wasn’t prepared to terminate the experiment after two years. Instead he collaborated with Viennese electronics pioneers on two more albums, “Only Tonight“ (2001) and “Easy Love“ (2003). Austen appreciates that his involvement with electronic music was a stroke of luck for him. “A very special phase of my career began when I was 53“, he gratefully acknowledges, “from which my life has enormously benefited over the last years, since I can perform my own songs and find an audience for them.”
His new music allows Austen a transformation from a pure entertainer, who assumes the roles of those he pays tribute to, into an artist in his own right, no less. “I’m quite grateful for having followed my instincts back then, despite the fact that some of my friends tried to dissuade me“, he says retrospectively.
Part of Louie Austen’s appeal lies in the fact that he has not entirely discarded the entertainer in this metamorphosis. He brought many things along for the ride, and his know-how of how to entertain with verve and how to put on a great show, his charm and charisma, the style & vocabulary of the urbane entertainer he had cultivated so long serve him equally well in the electronic underground. He is a mediator who mixes various genres, some of which were previously regarded as incompatible. For several years now he has managed to resolve alleged contradictions and break down prejudices – jazz and dance beats, advanced age and youth culture, smart style and underground. “In a way I stand for a kind of reconciliation“, he describes his unique position, “a bridge between old and new or between young and old.“
And indeed, Louie Austen does have a talent for bridging differences, which makes his role in the music business all the more important. And that’s not all – Louie even has the ability to dispel existential angst. “Now that I’ve seen you“, so many young people tell him after a show, “I’m no longer afraid of growing old.“ It’s hard to think of a better compliment.
www.louieausten.com
www.myspace.com/louieaustenmusic
www.myspace.com/louieausten
www.facebook.com/pages/Louie-Austen-Music/114516613471
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