PHOTO BY PATRICIA PASCAL
MARIA GRAPSA BIO
Athens born, London based since 2014; Maria Grapsa leads a quintet of young exciting players from the thriving UK scene. She’s -soon to be- jazz piano postgraduate with full scholarship of Royal Conservatoire of Birmingham, and is set to release her debut album later this year. Her music is influenced by cinematic themes; pushing the limits of improvisation within the jazz idiom and beyond. Maria’s classical music background, Greek origins and world, folk and Latin influences, all meet the jazz tradition in a unique way.
She has been spotted in numerous projects of London scene including Tomorrow’s Warriors Female Frontline, Suede Jazz Collective , Colectiva, Grand Union Youth Orchestra and with the hip-hop artist Shunaji, while she has also co-founded the ongoing electronic duo project Supermodels.
She has performed so far in prestigious venues and festivals such as Jazz Café, Southbank Centre, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Hootananny Club, Alexandra Palace, Wilderness Festival and Torstrassen Berlin Festival. while she has shared the stage with Gary Crosby OBE, Daniel Rollins, James Morton and Tim Berne. Maria is a recipient of Help Musicians Transmission Fund 2021.
In 2019-20 Maria created the ongoing project ‘Dialogue in’, a series of live studio recordings full of improvisation, spontaneity and musical dialogues. With the cross-disciplinary project, she hopes to open a dialogue in between artists, musicians of all kinds and audience. Her live videos and audio recordings are available across all online platforms.
Maria’s past and present musical tutors and mentors are: Liam Noble, John Turville, Mike Williams, John O’ Gallagher, Percy Pursglove, Tim Berne, Gary Crosby, Peter Edwards, George Kontrafouris, Cecilia Stalin and Sara Colman. She has been participating in workshops of Tomorrow’s Warriors, Barry Harris and Grand Union Youth Orchestra
Maria was clearly won over by her love for music over the past decade but her academic journey also includes an Environmental Engineering masters degree. In parallel with her pianistic, composing and band leading career she has also been successfully teaching piano and improvisation to young people since 2012, offering music lessons and workshops.
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