"Mia Zabelka is a sound artist, violinist and vocalist from Vienna, who creates hauntingly sensual music and is regarded as one of the leading 21st century proponents of what is known as experimental violin music. Mia Zabelka's projects show her exceptional mastery and a deep understanding of the violin, be it acoustic or electric, solo or as part of a collective. In her hands the boundaries of this instrument fade and paths to uncharted sonic territory open, as she bends genres, the conventional use of electronics and the human voice to expand the spectrum for her to paint her musical language in. Live in concert Mia Zabelka is an electrifying performer. In any context, she has the uncanny knack of commanding the stage and always being the centre of an audience's attention, achieved by the intensity and focus of her performances, rather than any gratuitous showmanship.

At the age of seven, Mia Zabelka discovered the violin. She was eager to find out how this musical object could produce interesting sounds when touched with a wooded stick strung with horsehair. Zabelka was already able to play works by the fabled virtuoso Nicolo Paganini in her first year of instruction on the instrument and at 12 was the youngest member of the Austrian Youth Orchestra. During her classical training with Alexander Arenkov, an assistant of David Oistrach, at the Vienna Conservatory of Music, she already began to play with various jazz and rock bands. With her inborn curiosity for the new and all that was unexpected Mia Zabelka then turned to the study of electroacoustic music at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna , creating a foundation on the basis of which she continues to construct and explore the limits of sound and music in a language entirely her own. She has now developed a unique language based on the de- and reconstruction of the violin's sonic possibilities for over 20 years, expanding the range of the instrument using live electronic devices, preparing it through the insertion of alien objects between or on the strings and innovative performance techniques. Mia Zabelka describes this process as Automatic Playing, continuously exploring sound and music as physical phenomena, always pushing back the boundaries in experimental performances and compositions that question established notions, improving the available techniques and given structures.

Her openness to the most varied musical directions and eclectic artistic influences have resulted in collaborations with numerous prominent international artists including John Zorn, David Moss, Pauline Oliveros, Elliott Sharp, Dälek, Audrey Chen, Maria Chavez, Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner, Lydia Lunch and Electric Indigo among many others. She has been the artistic director of phonofemme Vienna, an international festival of female experimental music and sound art, since 2009. In 2007 Mia Zabelka founded the Klanghaus, a center for sound and interdisciplinary art at her house in southern Styria/Austria. The Klanghaus is a meeting point for international and local artists and hosts the Klang.Zeit festival four times a year."