Mavroidi Martha
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 has participated in various world and contemporary music projects in Europe and the United States. With Martha Mavroidi Trio they have toured in Sweden, Spain, France, Turkey, Cyprus and Greece, and have performed at Womex Globalkan Scene in 2012.
She has studied Musicology in Athens, Ethnomusicology in London (SOAS) and Los Angeles (UCLA), and Contemporary Music in Amsterdam (Conservatorium Van Amsterdam). She studied the saz with Periklis Papapetropoulos, Byzantine chanting with Ioannis Arvanitis, Bulgarian singing with Dessislava Stefanova, Galina Durmushlyiska, and Tzvetanka Varimezova, and vocal technique with Giorgos Samartzis.
She has collaborated with choirs and vocal ensembles, composing and arranging music for voices a capella, and she has been teaching seminars on polyphonic singing and on modal improvisation. She conducts the vocal orchestra “Happy Hour Choir”, and the Greek Folk Choir of the National Conservatory of Holargos.
She has composed music for films, dance and theater productions.
Since 2013 Martha is the artistic director of Tinos World Music Festival.