Maria Jardardottir

Born in Oslo, Norway, in 1979, Maria Jardardottir is a performing and composing voice musician educated with a Bachelor and Master Degree in Jazz and Contemporary Music currently working free lance with international engagements. Through her education and in her work she has kept a strong focus on improvisation and extended voice techniques, Indian Classical music, world music and electro acoustic performance and composition.
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Along with her electro acoustic solo project Melatonin which is the only project featured with music on this site, Maria's other main projects are:
- Curious Voice Duo with voice musician Elisabeth Nygaard: The two voice musicians have a mutual enormous and childlike curiosity for their instrument; the voice. They see the voice as an ever lasting mystery, and through playing with it musically, as in a childs playing, with the means of improvisation, composition or both, they are in company continuously astonished to discover new, secret depths and surfaces of its being and behaviour.

Curious Voice Duo. Photo by Kathinka Walter
- Royst: A vocal quartet with Kari Nergaard Bleivik, Cecilie Giskemo and Therese Ulvan. Together they create and perform originally composed and improvised music for and with the voice. Their expression is versatile, human and courageous, and conveys a strong energy and a unified sound. They collect inspiration from jazz, contemporary music and vocal techniques, Norwegian folk music and other world musics.
Royst. Promo photo 2005.
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She also co-runs and/or is member of various collaboration projects and amongst them are;
- Soiled: Consisting of Tore Hovde (guitar/electronics) and Maria Jardardottir (voice/electronics) is in essence the simplistic storytelling and melodic singer/-songwriter idea meeting filthy as well as delicate improvisation and the sound of dirty rock riffs, all original. An experimental duo collaboration where the traditional roles of each instrument are neatly appreciated as well as eagerly stomped on.
Soiled. Photo by Birgitta Haga.
- Endenor; which is a trio collaboration between German reeds and woodwind player Ove Volquartz, English guitarist Chris Sharkey and Norwegian voice musician Maria Jardardottir. The three musicians have hugely different and resourceful musical backgrounds and meet on the grounds of totally free and anarchist improvisation, also at times infused with the utilization of the Norwegian poems of Jardardottir.
Endenor. Review from concert at The Apex, Germany tour May 2006, Gottinger Tageblat.
- Punch Drunk Bitch: An acoustic septet where the unconventional line up fuses song-based compositions by leader and voice musician Elisabeth Nygård, with dirty individual and collective improvising, filthy grooves, the occasional stab of drumn bass and sheer beauty. All preconceptions of the fundamental roles of the different instruments are put aside. The band aspires to merge organically as an entity consisting of seven equally vital assets, to create a hard-hitting sound to penetrate your head and to endow you with a poignant slap in the face. With Paul Moore - double bass, Didrik Ingvaldsen - trumpet, Adam - piano, Tom Leaper - alto sax and Staale Birkeland - drums.
Punch Drunk Bitch in studio May 2006. Photo by Elisabeth Nygaard.
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Maria has also done various commissions working in collaboration with artists from different fields and creative directions:
- The Danish music festival Roskilde Festival of 2006 commissioned a cross art collaboration project, "meet the mind that moves", conceived by Danish choreographer and dancer Matilde Mørk wherein Maria Jardardottir contributed as main performing and composing musician. Maria brought in her electro acoustic voice based solo project Melatonin with which she wrote and performed an original 45 minute music piece for the show.
"meet the mind that moves", Mork-Dans 2006. Photo by Morten Flarup.
- Maria was booked as solist to perform with The Silhouette Ensemble and The Saffron Beagley Jazz Orchestra in a two act show debuting two inspirational and original jazz projects lead and conducted by composer and saxophonist Saffron Beagley: From program notes: The Silhouette Ensemble presents a collaborative performance combining jazz, cross cultural music and voice in an original live sound track by Saffron Beagley, with shadows by Armchair Puppet Theatre animating the enchanting story The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck. The Saffron Beagley Jazz Orchestra: Graceful, sometimes raucous and always adventurous, Saffron's innovative compositions are written for her 17 outstanding Yorkshire musicians. The performance will include pieces by Maria Schneider and Kenny Wheeler. The debut performance was at The Wardrobe in Leeds, England, 31st of May 2006.
"The Blue Bird". Photo from Saffron Beagley's website http://www.saffronbeagley.co.uk/ .
- Maria Jardardottir was in 2005 commissioned to collaborate with artist, poet and publisher Alec Finlay, sound recordist Chris Watson and folk singer Clive Powell in the lyrical multimedia piece "siren"; a field recording of a sung performance accompanied by the swelling flow of high tide at dawn in a Northern English harbour, - subsequently and beautifully composed by Watson into a poetic field of sound.
"siren". Photo by Michele Allen.
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Buy NEW Melatonin album "Waves of Air and Seasons through Me" at http://cdbaby.com/cd/melatonin
Background photo is by Morten Flarup for MORKDANS. All rights reserved 2006.