The music of Mirabai Ceiba draws the listener into a gossamer web of gently plucked strings, stately piano arpeggios, subtle vocal interplay and poetic lyricism. The sound is easy to love, but hard to categorize. It’s world music. It’s chamber music. It’s folkloric. It’s devotional. But it ultimately transcends any label you try to put on it—except for “beautiful.” In it, we hear the loving heart-play of two gifted musicians and singers—the husband-and-wife team of Markus Sieber and Angelika Baumbach.
Together, they’ve created a series of acclaimed, exquisitely-realized studio albums and concert experiences that immerse listeners in a shimmering world of transcendent wonder. Markus and Angelika come from different parts of the globe. He’s East German. She’s of Mexican and German heritage, born in Tucson, Arizona, and raised in a small village near Mexico City. They met at a street fair during Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival and quickly formed an alliance both romantic and musical. The name Mirabai Ceiba reflects the couple’s pan- global perspective. Mirabai (1490-1547) was a legendary Hindu devotional singer. The Ceiba is the sacred tree of Latin America. Much like the sacred tree, Mirabai Ceiba’s roots run deep, and their branches reach out to take the world in a musical love embrace.
“Where language stops, music begins,” says Markus. “We go to Argentina and sing there, and two months later we’re in Amsterdam singing the same songs and people connect with them in a similar way. It’s truly beautiful and inspiring.”
“We wish to create this space where people can come to a quiet place inside themselves, where they can really listen,” Angelika adds.
“Then the chanting or musical interaction becomes much deeper. We need to come from silence; any creation comes form a quiet space first—from nothing.” — written by Alan Di Perna