Maria Jardardottir (BA, MMus) is a performing and composing voice musician working freelance with international engagements. Throughout her education and work she continues to keep a strong focus on creative composition, improvisation and extended voice techniques with roots in world music, Indian Classical music (Dhrupad), folk and jazz. Her current main projects for which she composes and performs in are: the vocal trio Røyst Trio and its collaboration with the jazz-folk sextet Metamorphic, as well as the chamber ensemble evamigra. Maria has since the mid 90s created work and toured UK, Europe, USA, Mexico and Zimbabwe and has performed/had her work played on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, NRK Radio (Norway), RTE Radio (Irland), KUSP Radio and KPIG Radio (USA), Sintesis TV, Fusion IMER Radio and XEWT12 TV (Mexico).
Maria regularly works in multi-arts projects and her voice and movement based collaboration with dance artist and choreographer James Jackson, J&M, have delivered commissions to the dance companies Edge (London, 2008), YYD (Leeds, 2009 and 2011) and Flight Effect (York, 2011 and 2012). The Roskilde Festival 2006 commissioned her as composer for the 60 min dance piece ‘meet the mind that moves’. In 2009 collaborating with sound recordist Chris Watson, the two conceived two commissions for the Pestival. Albums released: Solo project Melatonin; ‘[Monotonine Meditasjoner – Monotonine Meditations]’ (2004) and ‘Waves of Air and Seasons through Me’ (2006), with Røyst; ‘Nordic Initiative’ (2005) and with Curious Voice Duo; ‘At the Tip and the Root of the Tongue’ (2007).)
Maria has previously taught creative and healthy voice use at Northern School of Contemporary Dance and York St Johns University in UK for a number of years. From 2018 to august this year, 2022, she worked as a music teacher at Hvalstad skole in Asker including teaching at their Special Needs Pedagogy unit “Regnbuen”. She also worked during 2019-2020 as a children’s choir conductor at Nesodden Kulturskole. In august 2022 she will take on a new position as music and English teacher at Ås ungdomsskole.
Maria completed her PPU studies in music pedagogics at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo in 2019. And from 2006 to 2012 she was in private tuition with Amelia Cuni, – Europe’s only professional performer and composer of the ancient Indian music tradition; Dhrupad.