Australia Donna

Kavisha Mazzella

Singing in English and Italian, Kavisha sings traditional and original, contemporary music that are inspired by her rich Asian, Mediterranean & Celtic heritages. The daughter of an Irish-Scots/ Burmese mother and an Italian father, Kavisha was born in London, England .Her family migrated to Western Australia in the sixties, where the desert meets the sea. There, this large, argumentative musical family ran a small café in a bowling alley the city of Perth

Her maternal grandmother played banjo and her uncle on her Dad's side was a Neapolitan tenor. She learnt how to sing and play the guitar from her mother. Practicing guitar in her bedroom, her early influences include Sandy Denny, Joni Mitchell, & Leonard Cohen .She sang in church choir with her brothers and Grandmother.

Meanwhile, Her father taught her to love Art. Taking afternoons off from work, he would take her to visit Art exhibitions of local Artists. After leaving school, she studied Art at Claremont Art School, majoring in Painting. She started playing music in coffee houses and wine bars to pay for her paints,

But it wasn't until she heard the folk music of "Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare" from Naples that she felt she felt a deep connection to her heritage. Then she started to sing traditional Italian Folk, learning these from her father and grandmother. Then one day she was invited to play for a group of elderly Italian women in a derelict wooden church hall in Fremantle. They spent the morning singing and playing together. They became her new teachers, singing songs of the old country that had all but died out in Italy but had lived on in their memories. From their friendship, she realized the power of the stories of their lives and it was then she became a song writer chronicling their lives in an Album called "Joys Of The Women"

Whether working solo or with others, Kavisha has carved a strong reputation as a song maker, composer and theatre worker. Playing guitar, mandolin, piano accordion, it is her hauntingly beautiful voice, capable of power and nuance, humour and spontaneity on stage that makes no two shows alike. Singing in English and Italian, Kavisha's songs take you on a raw, poetic, emotional journey that takes you into the life and times of Multicultural Australia.
Currently she is preparing for her next album. She is based in Melbourne, Australia.

December 2002

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