In this workshop we will study songs and melodies from the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean, arranged for vocal ensemble. Treating the voice as a musical instrument, we will explore the possibilities and limits of the human voice, forming an orchestra of voices.
The workshop is aimed at singers and musicians of all levels. Teaching will be done using sheet music, but it is not necessary to be a perfect reader to join the group.
Info
Bio
“You could be in Athens, Istanbul, Sofia, Manhattan but the truth is that, with Mavroidi, you are in all of them at once.”
Michael Church, The Scotsman
Martha Mavroidi is a singer, lutist and composer from Greece. She has been singing and playing folk lutes from her childhood, performing music from Greece and the Balkans. Later she developed an interest in contemporary music, blending elements of folk music with contemporary harmony and improvisation. She graduated from the Music High School of Pallini, and she has studied Musicology in Athens, Ethnomusicology in London and Los Angeles, and Contemporary Music in Amsterdam with scholarships from the Onassis Foundation and the Fulbright Foundation. She has collaborated with important musicians and ensembles such as the legendary Greek folk violinist Stathis Koukoularis, ECM artist Savina Yannatou, English folk singer and violinist Eliza Carthy, and the Greek National Opera. With her Quartet she has performed in various venues in Europe and the USA. She is a member of the vocal quartet “Yasemi”, and she conducts the “Happy Hour Choir”, a workshop in the form of a vocal orchestra, and the Greek Folk Choir “Rodia”. She has composed music for prize-winning short and feature films, and for dance and theater productions, including the German Dance Company Mouvoir with which she has toured in France, Germany, and Korea. She has been commissioned to compose musical works for the Greek National Opera and the Greek National Theater. She has released four albums: The Garden of Rila (2009), Portaki (2012), Agiorgitiko (2014), Thread and Needle (2017) and she has published a book with compositions for vocal ensemble “Thread and Needle” (2019). Since 2013 Martha is the artistic director of Tinos World Music Festival.
