MARIA VOITENKOVA
Singer - Teacher - Lyricist
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PROJECTS
WENDY THE DUO
Experimental duo based in The Hague, Netherlands with influences from jazz to rock. It's composed by the singer Maria Voitenkova (Latvia) and the guitarist Gonçalo Oliveira (Portugal)
ЖОК [ZHOK]
This Contemporary Classical Ensemble is a pure improvisation experiment with only structural presets. It consists of of Alona Kliuchka (cello, Ukraine), Carlos Castro (seaboard, Netherlands), Maria Voitenkova (voice, Latvia) and Rakhadin Yametov (piano, Russia). Members find inspiration in the works of various composers, folk music, literature and poetry , sounds of nature and modern music.
VOCAL TRIBUTE TO BILL EVANS
The most traditional jazz project of Maria. Respectfully keeping the initial shape of the pieces, Maria (with the participation of a beautiful piano trio) explores compositions of her favourite jazz pianist and composer with her own little twist in the arrangements or by writing lyrics to some of Bill Evans instrumental compositions, which were never sung before.
MY MUSIC
These recordings were made as a demo for the wedding concert, where we successfully performed.
BIOGRAPHY
Maria Voitenkova was born in Riga, Latvia to a Russian-speaking family. She started taking classical piano lessons at the age of 5 and sang in children choirs and ensembles. She also attended fine art and ballet classes for several years.
At the age of 9 she switched her main music study profile to violin and kept to it until at the age of 14, when she found out about the new Popular music and jazz department at the local music school. Always fascinated by the improvisation and bored of having to stick to the scores, she decided to try the new path and began to study pop and jazz singing with Inese Bērziņa and Irīna Kozjura. She discovered jazz and it turned out that she finally found something she wants to seriously stick to. When she graduated local Bolderāja Music School, she proceeded her education at the prestigious Riga Dome Choir School's evening jazz department, studying with Inga Bērziņa.
In 2013, after graduating high school, Maria decided to explore something new and moved to the Hague to study European Studies at the Hague University of Applied Science, which she mainly chose because of her strong affection to foreign languages. Shortly after she started missing music and came to the Royal Conservatoire in the Hague, where in 2014 she got accepted for Bachelor programme with major in Jazz singing under the guidance of Yvonne Smeets and Anka Koziel.
While studying at the Royal Conservatoire, Maria participated in various choires and John Cage Songbook event, sang with the Royal KC Big Band and influenced by Brazilian music studied Brazilian Portuguese. She attended masterclasses with Norma Winstone, Susanne Abbuehl, Fay Claasen, Dina DeRose, Diane Reeves, Ravi Coltrane, Joshua Redman, Jeff Ballard and Enrico Pieranunzi among others and studied with Erik Gieben, Jarmo Hoogendijk, John Ruocco, Patrick Schenkius and Henk Huizinga among others.
While living in the Hague, Maria worked as a freelance individual vocal coach, teaching people of all ages and volunteered at Poesjkin School Leiden as a music teacher for groups of children starting from 1 year old. She collaborated with Broken Circuits Quartet(modern jazz), Kings Vision(prog rock) and Lena Liza(singer-songwriter). Had projects involving the music of Bill Evans, cinema music and jazz standards with her own quartet. Performed at the local jazz bars and venues, such as Cultureel Centrum Voorschoten(PjPJ), September Grote Markt, Murphys Law and Gekke Geit. It was in the Hague, where her main and still ongoing experimental projects(Wendy the Duo and Zhok Ensemble) were born.
Music, that Maria performs, directly or indirectly represents her backgrounds and diversely comes together in the projects she is involved. It naturally comprises love and respect for classical music, that she studied from an early age; folk music, deeply beloved in the region she is from; rock music, that she used to listen in her teenage years; electronic music, that has been around for decades; jazz and improvised music, which is her main influence; ballet and visual art; literature and poetry; foreign languages and travelling; environment and nature.
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