Mariza Koch

Biography

Mariza Koch is a Greek singer, songwriter and music teacher. Her first songs were traditional Byzantine music and island songs in Santorini where she lived until her teens. She brought Greek traditional music with her very own personal style, introducing electric sound to her covers. She wrote music to the poetry of Sappho, Kostas Varnali, of the Greek poet of the seas Nikos Kavvadia and of George Sarantaris. In 1976, Mariza Koch wrote a protest song against the Turkish invasion of Cyprus entitled “Panaghia mou, panaghia mou” and participated in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song. Since the 1970s, she has traveled around the world singing in major theaters and at music festivals in Western Europe, Russia, Canada, the USA, Latin America, Australia, India, the Middle East, and Africa as ambassador of Greek music. In 1980 she was the first Western singer to perform in China. In 1996 she founded her own record company, Verso Music, with the aim of recording traditional songs from all over Greece and publishing a children’s discography. Since the 1990s, Marisa Koch has focused much of her energy on children’s music education, both theoretically and practically. In 1996 she began teaching children lessons. Then, in 1999, he developed the method of experiential music education (taught in schools). In 2004, the “Mariza Koch Center for Experiential Music, Movement and Speech ” was founded to teach music to school children (4-6 years). She released children’s albums with traditional play songs and performed for children. Her books  – accompanied by cds – are aimed at children learning Greek and their language skills.
In 2011, in collaboration with composer Filtig, he created the electronic music project “Platonia”, in which she performed the vocal parts.
In October 2015, the University of Patras made a tribute to Mariza Koch, completing 50 years of uninterrupted presence in the music industry. She was awarded an honorary diploma.