Marcus Füreder, better known by his stage name Parov Stelar, is an Austrian musician, composer, producer, DJ and designer. He is one of the pioneers of Electro swing as well as a visual artist (including painting and screen printing). His musical style is based on a combination of jazz, house, electro and pop. Marcus Füreder first appeared as a DJ at nightclubs during the mid-late 1990s. He became involved in producing and publishing in 2000. After his first releases under the pseudonym Plasma or his real name in 2001 and 2002 on Bushido Recordings, Füreder founded his own record label, Etage Noir Recordings in 2003. A year later, under the stage name Parov Stelar, the EP Kiss Kiss was released, followed by the LP Rough Cuts. Parov Stelar has worked with Lana Del Rey, Bryan Ferry, and Lady Gaga.
Cleo Panther was the lead singer for Parov Stelar from 2011 to 2019. She was replaced with Elena Karafizi, who “brings a versatile musical background” from her hometown of Chișinău, Moldova. Soul singer Anduze co-inhabits the lead singer position alongside Elena. He officially joined the band in 2018, but has been working with Parov Stelar since 2012 as a writer and featured artist.
The track “Booty Swing” charted positions in the electronic US and Canadian iTunes charts. “All Night” reached double platinum status for 100,000 tracks sold in Italy in May 2017. Both of Stelar’s two most popular tracks All Night and Booty Swing come from his critically-acclaimed two-part 2012 release The Princess. In May 2018, the song “The Sun” featuring Graham Candy and in April 2020, the release “Voodoo Sonic Part 2” reached the No. 1 chart position in the US iTunes Electronic Charts.
The Upper Austria-born artist studied painting and graphic design at the University of Arts in Linz and in Berlin. In the summer of 2021 Parov Stelar gave a first insight into his work as a visual artist in his hometown Linz. The Francisco Carolinum Museum presented 25 large-format paintings such as “HELLO Mom” – a homage to his mother Margit Füreder, who is also active as an artist – “I’ll be OK soon” as well as “Toxic Lover” in which he reflects on autobiographical events and fears, processing them artistically. Just like in his music, text plays a crucial role in his visual artworks.
Following his debut exhibition in 2021, Parov Stelar’s visual art was showcased in several exhibitions. In 2022, his solo exhibition danke, gut was presented at Galerie Schloss Parz. In 2023, his works were featured as part of the Music Lounge exhibition series at the Technisches Museum Vienna. In 2024, he continued with multiple solo exhibitions, including blind date at the Glascubus in Ursulinenhof, Linz, second date at Galerie Haas & Gschwandtner in Salzburg, and a presentation at Salon Bucherer in Vienna.
