The group, who describe their style of music as gypsy soul, won the instrumental section for their song Waltz Ala Bra at the 37th annual awards.

Arabesk have been playing together since 2003, but individually they have decades of experience in playing in bands and teaching music across the globe.

Bathurst man Rob Shannon, who plays guitar and d’rrbuka in the group, said it was an honour to have received the national award.

He said the group was “having a year off” in 2017 and they had not realised that Arabesk drummer Calvin Welch had nominated the song for the award.

“This was the first time I hadn’t thought about the band, this was supposed to be our year off,” Mr Shannon said.

Arabesk is no stranger to the ASA awards and won the same category in 2011 with a song Mr Shannon wrote called Good Month, Bad Month.

“It’s a very beautiful song … it’s almost a heart-breaker, it’s about a musician who thinks they’re on top of the world and then the phone stops ringing,” he said.

Mr Shannon said while Arabesk might be an instrumental band, their songs have just as much meaning as those with lyrics.

“Lyrics are very immediate and you can tell a very direct story,” he said.

“When you have the music [that Arabesk plays] you can hear it, it really does express an idea.”

While Arabesk are based in Sydney, they have previously played at the Bathurst Winter Festival.

The quartet have also toured Japan a number of times, including a gig at the Takatsuki Festival in Osaka immediately after the tsunami of 2011.

“We didn’t realise how big the festival was and the next thing is we were playing to thousands and thousands of people,” Mr Shannon said.

“We’ve done big stages, but this was the biggest auditorium.”

Mr Shannon said many well known bands dropped out of playing at the festival because of safety fears after the tsunami.

“We headlined the festival by default because everyone dropped out,” he said.